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December 7, 2009

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Death-row inmate enters plea

Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 10:25 a.m.

A Las Vegas man already on death row for a quadruple murder entered a plea agreement Thursday in connection with an earlier shooting incident.

Defense attorney Joseph Sciscento said Donte Johnson entered the type of agreement that does not require him to admit guilt but which acknowledges that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict him of battery with a deadly weapon.

As a result of the plea agreement, Johnson faces two to 10 years in prison for a shooting that left Derrick Simpson a quadriplegic in May 1998.

Because Johnson, 23, is on death row for the August 1998 shooting deaths of four men, the plea agreement was worked out as a matter of judicial economy, Sciscento said.

In addition, had Johnson gone to trial and taken the stand to tell jurors he acted in self-defense, the prosecutors could have revealed the quadruple murder, Sciscento said.

If convicted of attempted murder in the Simpson case, Johnson would have faced a four to 40-year sentence.

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