BRIGHTON — A 27-year-old man who shot and killed a Broomfield resident during a 2009 road rage incident should spend the next six years in prison, an Adams County judge decided Thursday morning.

Travis Smith, of Westminster, also will have to spend two years on probation for killing 21-year-old Justin Maggard on Nov. 13, 2009.

Smith originally was charged with first-degree murder, but a jury in February convicted him of the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide. It also found him guilty of a secondary charge of prohibited use of a weapon.

While Smith’s defense attorney asked for a sentence of 18 months in jail, District Court Judge Chris Melonakis said the circumstances of the case were so troubling that even the presumptive maximum sentence of three years in prison would “depreciate the value of human life.”

“This was not an accident, this was a crime,” Melonakis told Smith, who stood silently in a yellow jailhouse uniform.

Melonakis said he was able to exceed the standard sentencing range because of multiple aggravating factors in the case, including the fact that a gun was used and because Smith hasn’t accepted responsibility for his actions.

He said that any sentence shorter than six years “would have no deterrent effect and, candidly, would simply be inappropriate.”

Witnesses told police that Smith shot the driver of another vehicle while the two were engaged in a back-and-forth road rage incident in the eastbound lanes of West 120th Avenue on the Broomfield-Westminster border.

Police responded to several 911 calls about the incident and found Maggard with a gunshot wound in his chest in the parking lot of Chili’s restaurant near the intersection of 120th Avenue and Huron Street.

Maggard was transported by ambulance to a Denver hospital, where he later died.

Smith, who fled the scene, was arrested later that night.

The judge told Smith that he had several chances to “disengage” during the roadway incident, and that he chose to pull a gun from inside his vehicle, disengage the safety and shoot Maggard.

Flanked by sheriff’s deputies, Smith told the judge that he’s sorry for the pain that he’s caused, but continued to claim the shooting was accidental.

“There’s not a lot I could say, but I’m sorry,” Smith said. “Did I intend to kill someone — no I didn’t. I carry this with me every day. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same.”

A large group of family and friends supporting both Maggard and Smith filled the courtroom with soft sobs during the hearing at the Adams County Justice Center in Brighton.

Rose Moore, a friend of Smith’s for a decade, said Smith told her that “he wishes he could trade places” with Maggard and that the incident has “destroyed two families.”

Harlan Schrade, Maggard’s father, made an impassioned plea for the judge to give Smith as much jail time as possible.

“Our son is gone forever,” he said. “No one in my family will ever be the same.”

He said that Smith “deserves no leniency, whatsoever.”

Family members from both sides declined to comment following the sentencing.

Public defenders told jurors during Smith’s trial that Smith was acting in self-defense after Maggard repeatedly acted aggressively toward him, repeatedly “brake checking” him in his car. Smith testified he did not know his gun was loaded when he drew it in an attempt to scare Maggard. His attorneys said he panicked when a round was discharged, causing him to flee the scene.

Prosecutors, however, said during Smith’s trial that he was “calm, cool and collected” when he drew his .40-caliber pistol, disengaged the safety mechanism, aimed and shot Maggard.

Because he fled the scene of the shooting, Smith was denied bail following his conviction. He has remained at the Adams County Jail since his original arrest and will receive credit for 510 days toward his prison sentence.