DEATH PENALTY WILL BE SOUGHT.Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer Ventura County prosecutors decided Tuesday to seek the death penalty against a Meiners Oaks man facing trial for shooting and killing a county sheriff's deputy responding to a domestic disturbance call last July. Michael Johnson Michael Johnson or Mike Johnson may refer to:
tr.v. es·tranged, es·trang·ing, es·trang·es 1. To make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent; alienate. 2. To remove from an accustomed place or set of associations. wife, and that he kidnapped and raped her the same day. Prosecutors decided to seek the death penalty based on special allegations that Johnson intentionally killed a peace officer performing his duties and that Johnson killed the deputy during a kidnapping kidnapping, in law, the taking away of a person by force, threat, or deceit, with intent to cause him to be detained against his will. Kidnapping may be done for ransom or for political or other purposes. . If a jury finds Johnson guilty of first-degree murder and either special allegation, a second trial would be held to determine if he should be sentenced to death or life in prison without the possibility for parole. Deputy District Attorney Matt Hardy
Matthew Moore "Matt" Hardy (born September 23 1974)[1] said prosecutors would not discuss the specific reasons for seeking the death penalty against the 49-year-old defendant because any comments could jeopardize his right to a fair trial The Right to a fair trial is an essential right in all countries respecting the rule of law. It is explicitly proclaimed in Article Ten of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution, and Article Six of the European Convention of Human . Johnson is scheduled to appear in Ventura Superior Court on Friday, when a judge is expected to set the trial date. The public defenders public defender, governmental official who represents indigent persons accused of crime. U.S. Supreme Court decisions expanding the right to counsel to pretrial proceedings and holding that a person cannot be sentenced to even one day in jail unless a lawyer was for Johnson have argued unsuccessfully that the charges should be reduced and Johnson should not face the death penalty. Much of the seven-day preliminary hearing in November featured defense contentions that there was no kidnapping and that Aguirre illegally entered the home. Deputy Public Defender Todd Howeth argued that Aguirre and three other deputies had no authority to enter a side yard or for Aguirre to go into the home because they were responding to a routine domestic violence call. Howeth contended that Johnson's wife did not give Aguirre consent to enter the home and that the deputy's decision to leave his gun in its holster was proof he did not consider the situation an emergency. Prosecutors countered that Johnson's wife showed the court how she motioned with her thumb into the home when Aguirre asked where Johnson was, just seconds before the shooting. The wife also testified she warned Aguirre that Johnson was armed. Johnson's public defenders also have argued that he suffered some mental impact serving in the Army during the Vietnam War Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam. and that could have contributed to the way he reacted when confronted by Aguirre and the other sheriff's deputies. Prosecutors have dismissed those claims, stating that Johnson did not enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity not guilty by reason of insanity n. plea in court of a person charged with a crime who admits the criminal act, but whose attorney claims he/she was so mentally disturbed at the time of the crime that he/she lacked the capacity to have intended to commit a crime. . |
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