HOUSTON, USA (AP) – A man who claimed Texas’ version of a stand-your-ground law allowed him to fatally shoot a neighbour after an argument about a noisy party was sentenced yesterday to 40 years in prison for murder.

Raul Rodriguez, 46, had faced up to life in prison for the 2010 killing of Kelly Danaher. He will be eligible for parole in 20 years.

“I think it sends a clear message that this was not a case of stand your ground,” prosecutor Kelli Johnson said of the sentence.

Rodriguez, a retired Houston-area firefighter, was angry about the noise coming from a birthday party at his neighbour’s home. He went over and got into an argument with 36-year-old elementary school teacher Danaher and two other men at the party.

In a 22-minute video he recorded on the night of the shooting, Rodriguez can be heard telling a police dispatcher “my life is in danger now” and “these people are going to go try and kill me.” He then said, “I’m standing my ground here,” and fatally shot Danaher and wounded the other two men.

Rodriguez’s reference to standing his ground is similar to the claim made by George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer who is citing Florida’s stand-your-ground law in his defence in the fatal February shooting of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin. Rodriguez’s case, however, was decided under a different kind of self-defence doctrine.

Defence attorney William Stradley said Rodriguez’s family was disappointed with his sentence and that the case was tragic for everyone involved.

“He understands that what he’s done is difficult and obviously if he could go back and change it he would,” Stradley said.

Mindy Danaher, the wife of the man Rodriguez killed, said, “Nothing will be enough. It’s not going to bring Kelly back. I just want (Rodriguez) to be in there forever.”

Kelly Danaher’s mother, Connie, read a statement in court in which she called Rodriguez a “hateful coward.”

“Eternal fire and damnation is not enough for what you took from us,” she said.

Prosecutors called Rodriguez the aggressor who took a gun to complain about loud music and could have safely left his neighbour’s driveway in Huffman, an unincorporated area about 30 miles northeast of Houston, any time before the shooting. Defence attorneys argued Rodriguez was defending himself when one of the men lunged at him and he had less than a second to respond.