( CNN ) -- A state appeals court Friday upheld an involuntary manslaughter conviction against Johannes Mehserle , a former San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer who shot and killed 22-year-old Oscar Grant in Oakland . The appeal questioned some of the evidence and instructions that were given to the jury at Mehserle 's 2010 trial . `` We disagree with defendant 's contentions and affirm the judgment of conviction , '' wrote the three-judge panel of the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco . Mehserle was accused of fatally shooting Grant on New Year 's Day 2009 on a platform of a Bay Area Rapid Transit station . Mehserle said at the trial that he intended to draw and fire his Taser rather than his gun . He was sentenced to two years in prison for the involuntary manslaughter conviction , but was released last year because of a California law that allowed him to reduce his sentence to nearly a year . This case has been controversial in California 's Bay Area community for years . The 2009 shooting was captured on a bystander 's cellphone video camera . The video showed Mehserle pulling his gun and fatally shooting Grant in the back as another officer knelt on the unarmed man . The video was widely circulated on the Internet and on news broadcasts , and it spurred several protests in and around Oakland .
Johannes Mehserle was convicted in 2010 of killing an unarmed man . He was sentenced to two years in prison . The shooting has been controversial in California 's Bay Area community .