Post by CCADP on Aug 16, 2005 6:48:00 GMT -5
Death upheld for man convicted of 1984 SoCal crime spree
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4:30 p.m. August 15, 2005
LOS ANGELES – The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of killing four women in Southern California during a crime spree more than 20 years ago.
The state's highest court in a 6-0 ruling rejected claims from Dean Phillip Carter that errors were made in his trials in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Carter, a former television cameraman and stepson of a late Alaskan police chief, was convicted in Los Angeles of the April 1984 strangulation deaths of two women in Culver City and one woman in West Los Angeles.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, concluded in a 124-page ruling written on behalf of the panel that prosecutors presented evidence the three women "were murdered at their residences in similar fashion within days of each other."
Carter, who has been writing an Internet column about his experience on Death Row, was convicted separately in San Diego County of the April 1984 murder of Janette Cullins and was sentenced to death.
In a separate 88-page ruling involving the San Diego case, George wrote that Cullins' slaying "bore a strong resemblance to the circumstances" of the Culver City killings just days earlier.
The San Diego County district attorney's office properly sought the death penalty, the justices found.
"The evidence of defendant's penchant for overpowering young women and strangling them to death amply demonstrates that the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty was neither arbitrary nor capricious, but rather an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion in response to defendant's criminal rampage across California," George wrote.
Carter also was convicted of a March 1984 rape of a woman in San Diego County. He was a suspect in the death of a fifth woman in Oakland in 1984, but authorities dismissed charges after he was given the death sentences in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Carter's rap sheet includes prior convictions for assault and rape stemming from a March 1984 attack and 1970s burglary convictions in Alaska and Oregon.
He was arrested in April 1984 in Arizona by a highway patrol officer investigating a report of an erratic driver. Items that belonged to the murder victims were found in his vehicle.
On the Net:
Deadman Talking: www.deadmantalking.com
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4:30 p.m. August 15, 2005
LOS ANGELES – The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the death sentence for a man convicted of killing four women in Southern California during a crime spree more than 20 years ago.
The state's highest court in a 6-0 ruling rejected claims from Dean Phillip Carter that errors were made in his trials in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Carter, a former television cameraman and stepson of a late Alaskan police chief, was convicted in Los Angeles of the April 1984 strangulation deaths of two women in Culver City and one woman in West Los Angeles.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, concluded in a 124-page ruling written on behalf of the panel that prosecutors presented evidence the three women "were murdered at their residences in similar fashion within days of each other."
Carter, who has been writing an Internet column about his experience on Death Row, was convicted separately in San Diego County of the April 1984 murder of Janette Cullins and was sentenced to death.
In a separate 88-page ruling involving the San Diego case, George wrote that Cullins' slaying "bore a strong resemblance to the circumstances" of the Culver City killings just days earlier.
The San Diego County district attorney's office properly sought the death penalty, the justices found.
"The evidence of defendant's penchant for overpowering young women and strangling them to death amply demonstrates that the prosecutor's decision to seek the death penalty was neither arbitrary nor capricious, but rather an appropriate exercise of prosecutorial discretion in response to defendant's criminal rampage across California," George wrote.
Carter also was convicted of a March 1984 rape of a woman in San Diego County. He was a suspect in the death of a fifth woman in Oakland in 1984, but authorities dismissed charges after he was given the death sentences in Los Angeles and San Diego counties.
Carter's rap sheet includes prior convictions for assault and rape stemming from a March 1984 attack and 1970s burglary convictions in Alaska and Oregon.
He was arrested in April 1984 in Arizona by a highway patrol officer investigating a report of an erratic driver. Items that belonged to the murder victims were found in his vehicle.
On the Net:
Deadman Talking: www.deadmantalking.com