The California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty conviction of one of Los Angeles’ most notorious gang killers on Thursday, saying jurors could save Timothy McGhee from execution.
Judge Goodwin H. Liu (Goodwin H.H.
McGhee, 51, was arrested nationwide in 2003 and is one of the most wanted fugitives in the country. The head of Toonerville Gang in Atwater Village, who was charged with nine killings, charged with six people, and convicted of three people.
Those convictions that were sentenced for the death penalty in 2009 were reversed in a comprehensive court ruling.
McGhee, considered ruthless and disciplined, cut down a terrible figure in the gang wars of Los Angeles in the 1990s and early 2000s – his back and chest were named by his crew and turf and their turf, shaved skulls, hawks and snakes ink with Mexican flags.
A LAPD representative had compared him to Charles Manson.
The gang boss mocked the law enforcement department and organized a delicate ambush that left two LAPD officers in the gunfire. Witnesses testified at his trial that he launched a terror campaign to hunt competitors and sometimes kill indiscriminately. He boasted about rap lyrics about him taking the pleasure of someone’s life.
“I’m here and have a chance to run at the end. The killer holds a gun and has fun,” McGee wrote in a rap lyric notebook found at his girlfriend’s home. “In my dreams, I hear screams. I feel obscene.”
The lyrics helped convince juries of 25-year-old rival gang members Ronnie Martin and 17-year-old Ryan Gonzalez and 25-year-old another rival girlfriend, Margie Mendoza.
During the fine phase of the trial, jurors heard that he was involved in the execution and killing of a friend, Christina Duran, who had told police about his role in the killing of Mendoza.
But the jurors were in a deadlock on whether he should face the death penalty. A juror told The Times that her two companions insisted that McGee should be lenient because he grew up and had no father.
“What is needed to pay for the scales?” said the juror. “That’s what most of us feel.”
The second jury convened by the verdict agreed that he should be executed – but dismissed the “hardhead” reservation after two jurors argued that he was “incapable of making a fair decision on any of McGee’s charges.” ”
“Judge Fifth is using speculation as facts, and there is no reason to explain why he feels his way except to say that every witness in prosecuted is being directed and lie,” the juror wrote on the third day of deliberation. “However, defense witnesses are being told the truth and believable.”
The court first asked the former to weigh the trade-offs. He agreed with jurors 9 and 11, believing that No. 5’s assertion “is not from what we hear.” Several other jurors who conducted the investigation disagreed, saying the deliberations were going well.
Juror 5’s suspicion seems to hang on the gang members of McGhee witnesses, some of whom signed a deal in exchange for testimony, while others testified police force them to identify him. No one stood up at first.
These facts have swept the High Court over the High Court, and Juror 5’s concerns are real, his dismissal is inappropriate.
“Most witnesses testified at the trial that they did not remember the incident and other witnesses admitted lying to police for everything they knew,” Judge Liu wrote. “Of the people who collaborated at the witness booth, former Toneville member Mark Gonzales testified under immunity, and there is evidence that other witnesses received the benefits of giving testimony.”
According to court documents, Jury 5 told his jurors that he thought their stories seemed to have been rehearsed.
He suspected a witness, a mother of four, because she said she went out to see what happened after listening to the gunshots.
The juror said he refused to trust another witness because “if I heard the shooting, I would fall to the floor and try to protect myself’.”
Leaders told court jurors 5 that “gang members won’t do something.”
Liu pointed out that the belief could have been based on testimony from prosecutors’ gang experts that “eavesdropping in gang culture is not allowed even if someone is on a competitor’s gang.”
McGhee’s attorney Patrick Ford said the court’s ruling was justified based on reasonable doubts from jurors.
“He was thinking, his conclusions were different from those of other jurors,” Ford said. “It was not an easy task in the situation of 11 “twelve angry men’.”
Despite his murder charges being overturned, McGee will likely remain in Kern Valley State Prison, where he will be sentenced to an additional life sentence under California’s three strike laws for decades.
He incited prison riots and assaulted guards during the trial at Los Angeles Men’s Central Prison, court records show. In 2012, he was charged with cutting two prison guards in death row in San Quentin.
Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman did not immediately say whether he would try McGhee for the murder, nor did he seek the death penalty again.
Hochman said late last month that in some cases he would seek the death penalty, turning around the previous moratorium.
Ford said that nearly two decades after the initial conviction, it would make the case expensive and difficult.
“It’s a very serious matter, and it’s expensive, and the country uses a lot of resources,” Ford said, although California hasn’t executed prisoners for years. “You want to know what the purpose is? Is the money worth it?”
