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Thread: Billy Joe Johnson - California Death Row

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    Billy Joe Johnson - California Death Row




    Summary of Offense:

    Sentenced to death in Orange County on November 23, 2009 for murdering his childhood friend, Scott Miller, on March 8, 2002. Johnson had requested the sentence because he believes death-row inmates are treated better. Prosecutors say Johnson took Miller to an alley where two other men shot him for divulging gang secrets during a Fox TV interview. Johnson is serving a 45-year-to-life sentence for a 2004 gang-related murder. He told jurors he killed two other people to try to convince them he deserved the death penalty.

    Michael Allan Lamb was also sentenced to death for Miller's murder.

  2. #2
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    November 23, 2009

    White Supremacist Sentenced to Death in California

    A white supremacist who said he prefers death row amenities has been sentenced to death.

    An Orange County judge sentenced 46-year-old Billy Joe Johnson on Monday for murdering his childhood friend in 2002. Johnson had requested the sentence because he believes death row inmates are treated better.

    Johnson was convicted last month for the killing of Scott Miller and a jury recommended death. Prosecutors say Johnson took Miller to an alley where 2 other men shot him for divulging gang secrets during a Fox TV interview.

    Johnson is serving a 45-year-to-life sentence for a 2004 gang-related murder. He told jurors he killed 2 other people to try to convince them he deserved the death penalty.

    (Source: The Associated Press)

    Judge to Costa Mesa White Supremacist: "You Shall Suffer the Death Penalty"

    It took almost 12 minutes for Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel to summarize Billy Joe Johnson's extensive rap sheet and mention a few mitigating factors before finding that the Costa Mesa-bred white supremacist gangster's 30-year spree of crimes "substantially warrant" the ultimate punishment: death.

    What could possibility mitigate the killing of five people? Judge Fasel said he considered that Johnson loves his mother, once refused an Aryan Brotherhood prison order to kill his cellmate, focused his violence on other criminals, spent more than half of his life incarcerated, grew up without a father who had abandoned the family, began abusing drugs and alcohol at the age of 10, and that several females vouch that Johnson is a sweetheart.

    Not surprisingly, Johnson--an admitted, Hitler-loving serial killer who lisps--treated the hearing without showing an iota of fear or worry. He smiled or quietly joked with defense lawyer Michael Molfetta throughout the judge's remarks. Indeed, the 46-year-old Public Enemy Number One (PEN1) gang member and former Nazi Low Rider hasn't hidden his desire to live his remaining years alive on San Quentin State Prison's death row. In his view, a worse plight would have been a life-without-possibility-of-parole sentence served in Pelican Bay State Prison.

    "You shall suffer the death penalty," Fasel told Johnson after denying a motion to modify the jury's death sentence recommendation earlier this month. The killer--who wore his customary Mohawk, wrinkled white button-down shirt, khakis, white sneakers and body chains--leaned back in his seat and sucked on his few remaining teeth. "You shall be put to death."

    Neither prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh nor Molfetta had anything of substance to say; Fasel ordered Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens to transport Johnson to San Quentin within 10 days. There, he will wait for the California Supreme Court to review his convictions and punishment. Every defendant in the state who is sentenced to death receives an automatic, taxpayer-funded appeal. If the past is any guide, the high court won't rule on the righteousness of this case until 2019 or 2020. The execution backlog in California is massive: more than 650 inmates.

    "I've got a lot of emotions," Bonnie Miller, the mother of one of Johnson's homicide victims, told me afterward. "This will make the community a safer place for all of us, but it doesn't change what he's done."

    http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazin...-johnson-pen1/

  3. #3
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Johnson's opening brief on direct appeal was filed on December 26, 2013.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_no=S178272

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Johnson's direct appeal has been fully briefed since January 22, 2015.

    http://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca.g...doc_no=S178272

  5. #5
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On November 3, 2015, oral argument will be heard in Johnson's direct appeal before the California Supreme Court.

    http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/c...s/SNOV315A.PDF

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    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Supreme Court Agrees with OC White Supremacist that He Should Die

    The state’s high court today affirmed the death penalty for a 52-year-old white supremacist gang leader convicted of killing a fellow gang member in Anaheim for doing a television news interview.

    Billy Joe Johnson, 52, sentenced to death in November 2009, testified that he wanted to be sent to San Quentin because Death Row had better amenities for gang leaders like him, such as TV privileges, versus being housed in solitary confinement in other prisons. Johnson eventually did get the TV he wanted, his attorney Michael Molfetta said.

    Johnson, formerly of Costa Mesa, was convicted of murder for luring his childhood friend, 38-year-old Scott Miller, to his execution by other gang members on March 8, 2002. Miller was gunned down months after he gave what he believed was an anonymous interview on Fox11 News about his gang.

    Johnson wanted to get sent to San Quentin because it would be possible there to get a TV to watch in his cell and it would offer other amenities as opposed to Pelican Bay State Prison, where he would be in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day due to his status as a gang leader.

    Johnson even offered up damning testimony as he admitted killing two other men, one while in custody and another while free.

    Johnson said his only wish was that he would not die before his mother, but he believed the appeals process for death row prisoners was so long that there would be little chance he would receive the ultimate punishment before his mother’s death.

    During his death penalty trial in 2009, Johnson was already serving a life term for the 2004 killing of Cory Lamons in Huntington Beach with a claw hammer.

    Another gang member, Michael Allen Lamb, 42, was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing Miller.

    Also convicted of Miller’s murder was Jacob Anthony Rump, 40, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole Oct. 5, 2007.

    Prosecutors contended that Lamb delivered the fatal shot to the back of the head of Miller, who was a founding member of Public Enemy Number One.

    Prosecutors said Miller, known as “Scottish,” was killed because he aired the gang’s dirty laundry in a two-part news report.

    The piece, broadcast on Feb. 20-21, 2001, focused on the evolution of the gang -- which grew out of the 1980s punk rock music scene in Long Beach ... then evolved to racist skinheads and then to criminal thugs, authorities said.

    The gang members recognized Miller, though his face was obscured in the broadcast, because of a tattoo and his pet pit bull.

    Johnson may never have been prosecuted for the killing if he had not chosen to testify in the murder trials of Rump and Lamb. In that case two years ago, Johnson tried to take all of the blame by testifying he was the shooter.

    But according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh, Johnson’s role was luring Miller to his death by asking him to join him on a ride from a party in Costa Mesa to Anaheim to buy drugs.

    Johnson was found guilty of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and accessory after the fact, with sentencing enhancements for criminal street gang activity, vicarious discharge of a firearm by a gang member causing death, and special circumstance allegations of murder by lying in wait and murder committed for a criminal street gang.

    Johnson’s attorneys challenged the constitutionality of the lying-in- wait special circumstance allegation in light of Prop. 18, which revised the definition of the legal term in 2000, two years before the murder. For the first time, the state Supreme Court addressed the constitutional question.

    Johnson’s attorneys argued that his liability in the special circumstance is lesser because he did not do the actual killing. The state’s high court rejected that reasoning.

    “Here, the jury’s finding was based on evidence that defendant’s actions satisfied the lying-in-wait special circumstance,” the justices wrote. “With the intent that Miller would be killed, defendant drove with him to Anaheim on the pretext of buying drugs, and led him into an alley where Lamb and Rump were waiting to execute him.

    “When defendant and Miller got halfway down the alley, Lamb and Rump approached from behind and, from that position of advantage, Lamb carried out a surprise attack by shooting Miller in the back of the head. The application of the lying-in-wait special circumstance to such a scenario does not offend the Eighth Amendment,” the ruling said.

    The justices, as they have before, also rejected arguments that jurors should not have heard evidence of the impact on victims of Johnson’s other crimes. A few of the justices, however, for the first time indicated they think the law should be changed, but said the death penalty should still be upheld in this case, Baytieh told City News Service.

    “We agree with the outcome of the case,” Baytieh said. “I think the Supreme Court saw it for what it was -- this defendant got a fair trial and he received the sentence he so richly deserved.”

    http://patch.com/california/fountain...-he-should-die

  7. #7
    Senior Member CnCP Addict johncocacola's Avatar
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    Does he have a private attorney? This direct appeal has been resolved quick for California.

  8. #8
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Here is the article that mentions the lawyer's name.

    http://patch.com/california/fountain...-he-should-die
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  9. #9
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On May 16, 2016, Johnson filed a habeas petition before the California Supreme Court.

    https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca....lRICAgCg%3D%3D

    In today's orders, the United States Supreme Court declined to review Johnson's petition for certiorari on direct appeal.

    Lower Ct: Supreme Court of California
    Case Nos.: (S178272)
    Decision Date: January 21, 2016

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.a...es/15-8971.htm

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