Notorious the gang boss obtains convictions to the overturned death penalty

The Supreme Court of California annulled Thursday the conviction for the death penalty of one of the most notorious gang personalities in Los Angeles, saying that a juror who would probably have spared Timothy McGhee of the execution had been wrongly rejected.

“Due to the erroneous release of a juror during the guilt phase deliberations, we must reverse the sentence and the sentence of McGhee,” wrote Goodwin H. Liu for the court.

McGhee, 51, was one of the most sought after fugitives in the country when he was caught in Bullhead City after a human hunting on a national scale in 2003. The chief of the Toonerville gang in the village of Atwater, he was suspected of nine murders, accused of six, and recognized of three.

These convictions, transmitted with the death penalty in 2009, were reversed Thursday in the tribal sweeping decision.

Renowned to be ruthless and disciplined, McGhee cut a terrifying figure in the Los Angeles ganglands wars in the 1990s and the early 2000s – his back and his chest were trees with the name of his crew and their lawn, his shaved skull inked with the eagle and the serpent of the Mexican flag.

A detective from the Los Angeles police department once compared it to Charles Manson.

The gang boss narrated the police and organized a sophisticated ambush that trapped two LAPD officers in a fire dam. Witnesses of his trial said that he had led a terror campaign, chasing the rivals and sometimes killing without discrimination. He boasted in rap words on the pleasure he felt by taking someone’s life.

“Here I come, the last chance to run. Killer with a firearm, to have fun,” wrote McGhee in a notebook of rap words discovered in the house of his girlfriend. “In my dreams, I hear cries. The pleasure I think is so obscene. ”

These words helped convince the jury of McGhee’s guilt in the death of rival members of the Ronnie Martin gangs, 25, and Ryan Gonzalez, 17, as well as Margie Mendoza, 25, the girlfriend of another rival.

During the sanction phase of his trial, the jurors learned that he was involved in the murder of style execution of a friend, Christina Duran, who had informed the police of her role in the murder of Mendoza.

But the jurors took place to find out if he had to face the death penalty. One told Times that two of his sworn colleagues insisted that McGhee should receive a certain leniency because he grew up without father.

“What would you need to tip the scale?” The juror said. “This is how most of us felt.”

A second jury summoned for the conviction agreed that he should be executed – but not before a “Hardhed” heist was rejected after two sworn colleagues argued that he was “not able to make a fair decision in one of the charges against McGhee”, according to the judicial archives cited in the decision.

“The juror number five uses speculation as facts and has no rational explanation to explain why he feels the way he does so other than saying that each witness in pursuit has been trained and lied,” the jurors wrote 9 and 11 “However, the discharges all say the truth and credible.”

The court first asked the rut to weigh. Several other jurors interviewed by the court did not agree, claiming that the deliberations were well.

The doubt of juror 5 seemed to hang on to the gang members who witnessed McGhee, some of whom had concluded agreements in exchange for their testimony, and others who testified that the police had prompted them to identify it. None was initially manifested.

These facts helped to influence the high court according to which the concerns of juror 5 were authentic and that its inappropriate withdrawal.

“Most of these witnesses declared to the trial that they did not remember the events in question, and other witnesses admitted to having lied to the police on what they knew,” Liu wrote. “Among those who cooperated on the stand of witnesses, the former member of Toonerville, Mark Gonzales, testified under the granting of immunity, and there was evidence suggesting that other witnesses had received an advantage in exchange for testimony.”

According to court documents, juror 5 told his sworn colleagues that he thought that their stories seemed repeated.

He threw a doubt about a witness, a mother of four, because she said that she went out to see what had happened after hearing shots.

The juror said that he refused to believe another eyewitness because “if I heard shots, I would fall on the ground and I would try to protect myself”.

The counterpartly said to court 5 juror said that “gang members would not do certain things”.

Liu noted that belief could have been based on the testimony of the accusation gang expert according to which “snitching was not authorized in the cultivation of gangs, even if someone rose to a rival gang”.

Patrick Ford, McGhee’s lawyer, said that the conclusion of the court was justified on the basis of the reasonable doubts of the juror.

“He deliberated nobly and he has just drawn a different conclusion from that of other jurors,” said Ford. “It is not an easy job in a kind of 11 years of a situation of” twelve angry men “.”

Although his murder convictions have been canceled, McGhee will probably remain in Kern Valley State prison, where he is serving an additional perpetuity sentence under the California three decades law.

While waiting for a trial at the central male prison in Los Angeles, he prompted prison riots and assaulted guards, according to the judicial archives. In 2012, he was accused of having reduced two prison guards with a stem pending execution in the death corridor in San Quentin.

A spokesperson for the county of the. Atty. Nathan Hochman said the office was aware of the High Court decision on the McGhee case and decided to do it.

“Our office is currently examining the court’s decision in detail,” said the AD office. “We will take a determination on the advisability of trying the case in the near future.”

Hochman said at the end of last month that he would ask for the death penalty in some cases, reversing the previous moratorium.

Relying the case for almost two decades after the initial conviction would be expensive and difficult, Ford said.

“This is a very serious question, and it is expensive and there are many resources used by the state,” even if California has not executed prisoner for years, said Ford. “You wonder, what end?” Is money worth it? ”