Death Penalty Question Draws Warning in Johnson Trial

A question by convicted killer Michael Raymond Johnson’s defense attorney Tuesday catapulted an outraged prosecutor from his seat, and forced a judge to rush jurors from the courtroom.

Defense attorney Brian Boles asked Johnson’s mother, Wilma, if she “wanted her son to get the death penalty”--a question Judge Steven Z. Perren later denounced as violating legal limits.

“Objection,” shouted Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Hardy, jumping up from the table and striding red-faced toward the witness stand. “That’s misconduct. That’s gross misconduct!”

Perren appeared shocked.

With the jurors out of the room Perren turned to Boles.

“That question is not to be asked,” he said. Last month jurors convicted Johnson, 50, of killing Sheriff’s Deputy Peter J. Aguirre in 1996, when he responded to a domestic disturbance call in Meiners Oaks and was fatally shot before he could draw his gun.

Emotions were already running high in this phase of the Johnson trial--during which jurors will decide whether to sentence the Vietnam veteran to life in prison or death.

But with so much at stake, Tuesday’s session seemed to reach new heights. “This is blatant misconduct,” Hardy fumed. “I think Mr. Boles should be cited for contempt. In 20 years I have never seen anything like this.”

Boles said he did not know what the parameters were for questioning Johnson’s mother. The outburst occurred after Johnson’s mother, 72, took the stand and propped an 8-by-10 photograph of her son in a uniform prominently on the stand, facing the jury.

The photo bore a strong resemblance to a photo of Aguirre presented by prosecutors--showing a man in uniform [in this case Johnson] standing by an American flag. Johnson’s mother’s photo had not been entered into evidence.

After prosecutors complained, Perren asked her to take it down.

“We’ve observed the slipping of a photo in front of the jury,” Hardy said. “And now we have the asking of a question which is gross misconduct.”

When the jurors reentered the courtroom, Perren gave them the most strongly worded warning they they have heard so far.

“The decision concerning the result of this case is exclusively yours,” he reminded the jury. “You are specifically and strongly admonished to disregard the question last asked by the defense and her response.

“The law of the state is clear. The expressed feelings [on the death penalty] of the family of the defendant are not to be considered. The family of Deputy Aguirre did not and could not express their desires. They respected that rule,” he told them. “You should do no less.”

Johnson’s father and two brothers were in court Tuesday. As his mother spoke, Johnson shifted his feet repeatedly--crossing and uncrossing them.

In other testimony, prosecutors spent two hours grilling a psychologist in an effort to show Johnson was not delusional the day he fatally shot Aguirre.

“What delusion did he tell you he was suffering when he fired his first shot at Deputy Aguirre?” prosecutor Maeve Fox asked Charles Hinkin, a neuropsychologist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles. Hinkin testified Monday that Johnson is a paranoid schizophrenic who was in the throes of paranoid delusions the day he committed his crime.

“He did not tell me of any delusions,” Hinkin said.

“What delusion did he tell you he was suffering when he fired his second shot?”

Again, none.

“And what delusion did he tell you he suffered when he stood over the bleeding body of Deputy Aguirre and fired a third shot into his brain from less than 12 inches away?”

None, he said.

Defense attorney Todd Howeth has argued that Johnson should not be sentenced to death because he suffered from delusions and severe bouts of paranoid schizophrenia for years.

Whether the jury believes Hinkin’s testimony will be critical when it decides whether to spare Johnson’s life.

Defense testimony will resume Thursday.