After successful appeal, Livermore man sentenced to 27 years in plea deal stemming from double homicide at heroin and gun deal

DUBLIN — Four year after he successfully overturned his murder conviction on appeal, a Livermore man has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for killing a man during a chaotic double homicide in 2015, court records show.

James Henry Wear, 38, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 22-year-old Ryan Rossknecht, and was formally transferred back to state prison on Aug. 5, records show. The case stemmed from a heroin and gun deal where 28-year-old Brandon Lowell and Rossknecht were both fatally shot.

According to court records, Wear and Lowell agreed to meet up with Rossknecht, who wanted to pay for heroin with a firearm. Rossknecht allegedly shot Lowell in the head twice during an argument, and Wear was then able to wrestle a gun from Rossknecht and kill him. Prosecutors initially accused Wear of setting up Rossknecht to be robbed, though he and Lowell reportedly arrived to the meeting unarmed.

Melissa Adams, a local attorney who took on Wear’s case after his successful appeal, said the deal was “something as close to ‘justice’ as the system can provide.”

“The resolution, by its terms, acknowledges the risks faced by both sides, and was a middle ground,” Adams said in an email. “It allowed Mr. Wear to take responsibility for his actions, while still allowing him the possibility of a meaningful life upon his release.”

Adams added that the whole defense team, including Wear, wanted to offer “our deepest condolences to the Lowell and Rossknecht families and hope that the resolution of this case, and its attendant finality, will allow them to resume their journey of healing.”

The double homicide occurred a little after 3 p.m. on March 1, 2015, at a McDonald’s parking lot on Altamout Creek Drive in Livermore.

Wear was initially charged with two counts of murder, but jurors only convicted him of Rossknecht’s death. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison, but in 2020 won his appeal after justices ruled jurors had relied on an “insufficiently supported premeditated murder theory,” court records show.

This new deal gives Wear credit for the seven-and-a-half years he spent behind bars since the incident, and requires him to pay $10,000 in restitution, records show.

At the June 14 sentencing hearing, Rossknecht’s mother, Amy Rossknecht, said the family was “extremely disappointed” with the plea agreement and described her son as a “sweet and kind” young man.

“Ryan’s death was gut wrenching for our family. What came next was years reliving the nightmare with numerous meetings with police detectives, district attorneys and that all was before the trial even took place,” she said. “Then two weeks of trial where we sat through painful evidence and finally got what we were promised and that Ryan deserved: A murder conviction and closure.”