Family members of a slain Lawrence man reacted with outrage Monday as a judge sentenced his killer to the maximum possible under state law: slightly more than five years in prison.

Michelle Sanders, the widow of Quincy M. Sanders, said she thought her husband’s death had been treated cheaply, “like a piece of candy.”

“This is just crazy,” she said at the sentencing for Tremain V. Scott, 22, Overland Park, in Douglas County District Court.

Quincy Sanders’ sister, Leslie Sanders of Yazoo City, Miss., said another member of her family is facing about 14 years in prison for a drug-related charge in Douglas County.

“It’s just wrong for them to give this guy just 61 months for killing my brother,” she said. “To me that’s just giving him permission — ‘OK, you can go do this again.'”

The reason for the length of Scott’s sentence is the same reason a convicted felon who injured 11 people in an Oct. 5 shooting outside a downtown bar will serve about three years. In Kansas, a sentencing grid — not a judge — is the most influential factor in determining a criminal’s sentence.

The Legislature created the system 10 years ago as a way to create consistent sentencing statewide, but critics say the grid is inflexible and strips judges of their discretion.

The judge in Scott’s case, Paula Martin, expressed frustration with the guidelines Monday, just as she’d done last week when sentencing downtown shooter Jason A. Tremble.

“It’s incomprehensible to me that you can take a person’s life and be looking at a maximum of 61 months in prison,” Martin said.

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Under the state’s previous guidelines, a judge could sentence someone convicted of voluntary manslaughter to a broad range of years — for example, five to 20 — and the actual release date was determined by the parole process.

Quincy Sanders died March 14 after an armed confrontation with Scott at a duplex in the 2500 block of Ridge Court. Scott — who had argued earlier in the night with members of Sanders’ family — riddled Sanders’ body with bullets as it lay on the ground, according to an eyewitness.

An autopsy showed Sanders died with 18 gunshot wounds.

Amid concerns that Scott would be able to argue self-defense at trial, prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. Because Scott has no criminal history, he fell into a box on the sentencing grid in which the maximum sentence is 61 months.

After the sentencing, Scott and Michelle Sanders exchanged words in the courtroom. He told her, “He wasn’t no saint. He was out there living like I was living.”

Leslie Sanders said her brother sold drugs but said he wasn’t a violent person.

A co-defendant in the case, Corey T. Robinson, 23, Topeka, is awaiting trial for aiding and abetting second-degree murder.

Last week Martin said she would have liked to string the sentences back-to-back for all 13 counts of which Tremble, the downtown shooter, was convicted. But she could only sentence Tremble to 40 months because of a provision in the sentencing laws that caps sentences in cases with multiple counts.