photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Steven Drake III looks to his attorney, Hatem Chahine, during his sentencing for voluntary manslaughter on Friday, April 22, 2022, in Douglas County District Court. He was sentenced to 100 months in prison for shooting Bryce Holladay in 2017.

Updated at 6:20 p.m. Friday

A Lawrence man on Friday was sentenced in Douglas County District Court to more than eight years in prison for killing another man nearly five years ago in the doorway of his home.

The man, Steven A. Drake III, 25, was convicted Feb. 18 of voluntary manslaughter for shooting Bryce Holladay, 26, on Sept. 19, 2017, at Drake’s duplex in the 2000 block of West 27th Terrace. On Friday Judge Kay Huff sentenced Drake to 100 months in prison, with a credit of 1,106 days, or about three years, of time served.

Holladay’s mother, Gloria Souza, addressed the court before the sentence was handed down.

“This is a day I hope and pray for justice,” Souza told Huff.

Souza said that while she hoped for justice in the sentencing, she didn’t feel that justice had been served at Drake’s trial — and that the jury had reached a decision based on “lies” about her son.

Drake was originally charged with murder, but a jury found him guilty of manslaughter.

Holladay’s father, Richard Walker, also addressed the court. He said that Drake and Holladay were childhood friends and that he didn’t think Drake deserved to spend his life in prison but that he should be severely punished.

“I think this man needs help for whatever he has been through in his youth,” Walker said.

As previously reported by the Journal-World, the jury returned a verdict for the lesser crime of voluntary manslaughter after about a day and a half of deliberations.

Drake, who was represented by attorney Hatem Chahine, admitted to the shooting but argued in court that he did it in self-defense after Holladay refused to leave his home and became violent.

Holladay was a 2010 graduate of Eudora High School. He is survived by a daughter.

Drake’s trial was delayed multiple times over 4.5 years for various reasons, including his changing attorneys and, most recently, his refusing to appear in court and rejecting a plea deal.

Drake’s sentencing on Friday was punctuated with a final outburst as Drake was taken away by sheriff’s deputies. Drake burst out of the courtroom into the hallway, wrestling to get free from the deputies while hurling curse words at Holladay’s family. A shouting match ensued between the families of Drake and Holladay while he was dragged away.

Drake has had multiple run-ins with the criminal justice system.

In another case from 2017, Drake pleaded no contest in June 2019 to attempted aggravated battery in a case where he was accused of beating a 16-year-old boy in a fight, causing a serious head injury, on July 8, 2017. Drake was sentenced to 570 days in prison for that conviction.

Drake also faced a vehicular manslaughter charge, which is a misdemeanor, in connection with a deadly crash on Nov. 6, 2016, just north of Clinton Lake. Taylor B. Lister, 24, of Lecompton, was killed in the crash. That case was set to go to trial in August 2021, but was dismissed for insufficient evidence, according to court records.