MARTINEZ — Six years after they were virtually condemned to live out their lives in prison for two murder convictions, three San Francisco men have been resentenced to much lower terms, freeing one outright and giving two others definite release dates.

Sheldon Silas, 34, Reginald Whitley, 41, and Lamar Michaels, 35, were convicted in 2017 of murdering Christopher Zinn, 24, and his girlfriend, Brieanna Dow, 21, whose bodies were found riddled with bullets alongside Buchanan Road in unincorporated Antioch in October 2012. But last year, a California appeals court overturned their convictions, writing that the prosecutor’s “inappropriate” questions of a potential juror were “plainly tied to race” and warranted overturning the verdicts.

In late December, Silas, Whitely and Michaels all pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and were resentenced. For Michaels, the new deal meant freedom; he was given credit for time he’s already served behind bars and released from jail the same day. Silas, meanwhile, received 26 years with credit for 10, and Whitley was given 24 years with five years’ credit.

It is a drastically different outcome from their January 2017 sentencing, when the three were given life in prison without the possibility of parole for murder and gang enhancement charges.

Aside from the defendants’ successful appeal, there were other challenges for prosecutors: The homicides are now 10 years old, it was unclear who of the three fired the fatal shots, and a new law restricting gang-related charges would have limited evidence of the defendants’ gang memberships from going before a jury.

At the 2017 trial, the main witness was brought to and from court by armed detectives acting as security, due to concerns over potential witness retaliation. A fourth defendant was convicted at trial of using a fake name to visit Whitley in jail, and taking a picture of “paperwork” showing the man was a police informant, to intimidate the witness.

Silas, Whitley and Michaels were alleged to be part of a San Francisco gang known as the Westmob Mob Stars, and prosecutors alleged Zinn — a lifelong friend of Silas — was blamed for some assault weapons that went missing from a gang stash. Dow was killed simply to prevent a witness from coming forward, authorities say.

The unanimous decision by the First District Appellate Court to reverse the convictions cited questioning by then-Deputy District Attorney Melissa Smith, who left the Contra Costa DA’s office in 2020. The justices rectified Smith’s reasoning that the woman had a “myriad of anti-prosecution issues,” and reverses trial Judge Clare Maier’s ruling against a defense motion that asked her to find Smith was being discriminatory. Presiding Justice Jim Humes noted in the decision that the office and “this prosecutor in particular, had in the past exercised peremptory (juror) challenges on the basis of race.”