Jury seated in trial of suspect in 4 slayings

Bill Gang

Wednesday, June 16, 1999 | 11:12 a.m.

A jury of three blacks and nine whites took their seats this morning to hear opening arguments in the murder trial of Sikia Smith in the execution-style slaying of four young men last August.

Before arguments began Smith's attorneys challenged the prosecution's decision to dismiss a black woman from the 12-member jury.

Defense attorney Peter Christiansen Jr. argued that Smith, who is black, is entitled to a jury of his peers and the exclusion of blacks from that panel violates his right. Of the four jurors excluded by the prosecution, he pointed out, two were black.

Pavlikowski disagreed, saying that prosecutors noted that one excluded juror admitted she may not have been able to consider the death penalty and admitted she was swayed more toward rehabilitation than punishment.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for the 18-year-old Smith although he is not alleged to have been the one who actually shot the four victims.

Donte Johnson, 19, is charged with being the triggerman who fired bullets into the heads of four duct-taped men who had been robbed of $240 on Aug. 14. Johnson is scheduled to stand trial next month and also faces the death penalty if convicted, as does a third defendant, 19-year-old Terrell Cochise Young. Young's trial is scheduled to begin next week in Pavlikowski's courtroom.

Statements to police by Smith and Young after their arrests indicated the suspects believed that perhaps $6,000 in cash and a quantity of drugs were in the house on Terra Linda Avenue near Nellis Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue, where the killings took place.

Although a fourth man was alleged to have been involved, no other arrests have been made.

In their statements to Metro homicide detectives, Smith and Young indicated that the fourth man had provided the information that led to the ill-fated robbery.

Smith had said the fourth man told them that "if we were going to go over there and do what we're going to do, that they would have to be killed because the guys knew where he lived and everything and knew Donte, too."

When the defendants returned to the home of the fourth man, according to the statements, he was angry because there were no drugs in the home. While Guymon confirmed that autopsy reports showed there were drugs in the systems of the four victims, only a small quantity of drugs was found in the home.