ARMED-ROBBERY VERDICT UPHELD 3 MEN IN PRISON FOR 3 SHOOTINGS, SAVAGERY AT BAR.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE -- An appeals court has upheld the attempted murder convictions of three men sent to prison for a 2003 robbery of a Lancaster bar in which the owner was beaten and two employees and a customer were shot.

The author of an opinion from a panel of justices in the 2nd District Court of Appeal described the Sept. 23 robbery at Snooky's, a bar with bikini-clad dancers, as savagery in which victims' lives were used as bargaining chips to force the owner to open the safe.

In a 23-page ruling, the justices rejected the arguments of Terrence Dunson, Marshawn Jackson and Brian McDonald that the trial judge made errors and that there was insufficient evidence for their convictions.

Dunson, 25, and Jackson, 26, both of Carson, and McDonald, 24, of Long Beach were each convicted of kidnapping for the purpose of robbery, attempted murder and robbery. They were sentenced in 2005 to terms ranging from 53 years to 147 years to life in prison.

Dunson's girlfriend had worked at Snooky's and had made a hand-drawn map of the bar and the surrounding streets, the appellate panel noted.

The three men entered the bar shortly after it opened at noon, then drank and played pool while Dunson's twin sister, Amber Dunson, waited outside in a car with its engine running, the panel said.

Amber Dunson was acquitted of attempted murder and kidnapping but found guilty of robbery and evading a police officer. She was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison.

The three men left after the bar after the owner asked Terrence Dunson to give back his beer because he did produce identification.

The three immediately re-entered the bar, and Terrence Dunson hit the owner in the head with a bar stool, causing him to fall to the floor. Jackson put the doorman down on the floor and shot him point-blank in the hip.

Terrence Dunson grabbed the owner and dragged him into a back room, where he was forced to open a safe. Along the way, McDonald punched the owner twice, knocking out teeth, prosecutors said. Dunson also kicked and fractured the owner's foot, the justices pointed out.

The customer and bartender were forced to sit in the back room, and the doorman was bound with duct tape and also taken to the back room, prosecutors said.

After grabbing money out of the safe and trying to disable the surveillance system, Terrence Dunson ordered that the four victims be shot, prosecutors said. Jackson fired three additional shots, striking the bartender and the customer but missing the owner, prosecutors said.

A California Highway Patrol officer spotted the getaway car near Acton. Officers chased the car to the border of Pacoima and San Fernando, where the occupants jumped out and were later captured.

Among other claims, the defendants argued that there was insufficient evidence to support their convictions for kidnapping for robbery, saying the movement of three of the victims was incidental.

The justices disagreed, ruling that the evidence indicated the victims were brought to a back office to be killed.

The men also said the fact that the victims' wounds were not fatal indicated that the robbers were not trying to kill them when they shot them.

The doorman and bartender were shot in the hip, the customer in the arm. The owner was shot at but not hit.

``Where the overwhelming evidence shows that defendants premeditated and deliberated, they do not get a reward because the victims miraculously escaped mortal injury,'' the judicial author wrote.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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