‘The Shield’ actor Michael Jace found guilty of his wife's second-degree murder

His conviction of first-degree murder was dropped as his lawyer insisted Jace had not planned the attack

Mr Jace was allegedly waiting at home with a shotgun the day his wife was killed (AP)

The Shield actor Michael Jace has been found guilty of his wife's second-degree murder in 2014 after she told him she wanted a divorce.

Jace was initially charged with first-degree murder, but his lawyer, Jamon Hicks, argued that his client only meant to hurt his wife and not kill her.

The case came down to his client’s mindset, he argued, and the attack was not premeditated.

Jace is most known for his role as a police officer on the television series The Shield, a show about an experimental division of the LAPD that takes on criminal antics to bust other criminals.

He acknowledged that he killed his wife on 19 May 2014. He called 911 and told detectives that he wanted to inflict pain on April Jace and planned to shoot her in the leg.

He shot her three times, twice in the legs, in the hallway of their home in Hyde Park and in front of their two young sons, aged 5 and 8 at the time.

Now 10 years old, his older son told the court that he heard his father tell his mother, “If you like running, then run to heaven."

Jace said he had planned to kill himself after his wife said she wanted a divorce, but could not go through with it.

She was killed shortly after she returned home from a youth baseball game. She had thought he was out of the house due to text messages from Jace, when actually he was waiting at home with a loaded gun.

He blamed his wife for “lunging at him” before he took the first shot.

“I was just angry,” Jace told investigators, according to a court transcript, as reported by NBC. “All I intended to do was shoot her in the leg. And then I shot her in the leg and that was it.”

Jace, who also featured in the movies Forrest Gump and Boogie Nights, will hear closing arguments on Friday before receiving his sentence.