Woman sentenced again for Lakewood slaying

A woman sentenced to 29 years for her role in a fatal Lakewood shooting got a substantially shorter prison term Monday after a successful appeal.

A jury convicted 42-year-old Kisha Fisher in 2011 of being an accomplice in the murder of 39-year-old Lenard Masten.

Last year, the Washington State Supreme Court overturned Fisher’s first-degree murder conviction and ordered her to have a new trial.

On Monday, Fisher appeared before retired Pierce County Superior Court Judge Rosanne Buckner, who was filling in on a temporary basis.

Fisher pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter and first-degree robbery as part of negotiations with prosecutors, and Buckner sentenced her to nine years in prison.

Fisher’s brother, 46-year-old Corey Trosclair, was sentenced to 46 years for the shooting, and the high court upheld his conviction.

Masten died after he was shot outside his apartment Jan. 16, 2011.

Prosecutors argued Trosclair and another man didn’t like the quality of the cocaine Masten sold them, and tried to rob him. In the process, Masten was shot.

Fisher set up the meeting between the men, according to court records.

She argued in her appeal that the state didn’t sufficiently prove she knew what the men planned to do, or that there was a gun.

Given that, she said, Superior Court Judge Vicki Hogan was wrong during the initial trial to not give the jury an affirmative defense instruction.

Defendants are entitled to that if they didn’t commit the homicide, weren’t armed themselves, didn’t have reason to think anyone else involved was armed and didn’t have reason to think anyone else would be killed.

This story was originally published January 23, 2017 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Woman sentenced again for Lakewood slaying."