Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Killer of four gets death penalty

A jury's decision to sentence Donte Johnson to death Thursday triggered a release of tears and anger at a judge by relatives of the four young men Johnson killed in 1998.

After roughly five hours of deliberation over the course of two days, the jury determined that Johnson deserved to be executed for the murders in 1998 of Matthew Mowen, 19, Jeffrey Biddle, 19, Tracey Gorringe, 20, and Peter Talamantez, 20.

Donte Johnson was previously convicted by a jury and sentenced to death row by a three-judge panel for the murders, but the U.S. Supreme Court subsequently ruled that only juries can levy the death penalty in such cases. That ruling resulted in Johnson's new penalty hearing.

One juror cried and another sat with eyes closed as District Judge Lee Gates' clerk read the four death sentences given to Johnson.

As he had earlier in the case, when the jury decided that Johnson was eligible for the death penalty, Gates once again made the unusual move of unilaterally polling the jury. Under normal courtroom procedure a judge only polls a jury if the defense attorneys and the prosecutors request it.

Gates' actions on the last day of the three-week penalty phase didn't surprise victim Matt Mowen's father, David Mowen, he said.

Mowen, summarizing frustrations similar to those expressed by all of the family members of the victims, said it seemed to him that at some point in the trial Gates "adopted Donte Johnson."

"We deserve, we should expect our judges to be as open as we require our jurors to be and that was not the case with Judge Gates," Mowen said. "When comes down to his (Gates) decisions in the case, the bulk went toward Donte's favor."

But Johnson's defense lawyer, Bret Whipple, said the criticisms of Gates are wrong. As any good judge would have been, Gates was cautious with his handling of the case, probably because he was trying to prevent the outcome of the 7-year-old case from being reversed again on appeal.

"This judge wasn't catering to anybody," Whipple said. "He was doing his job. It's a tough business this environment that we are in. It's not easy to do a capital case."

Whipple said he had "complete sympathy and compassion for the victims and their families." But he said the judge had to follow decades of U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding capital cases to ensure that Johnson's penalty phase was fair. The jurors also had to make the tough decision to sentence someone to death.

"I know its not easy for anybody, the court included," Whipple said.

Gates could not be reached for comment on the case Thursday.

Mowen said the judge needs to explain his handling of the case. The jury held Johnson accountable for his crimes, and now Gates needs to be accountable for his performance on the bench, Mowen said.

"I want anyone other than him (Gates) to be a judge," Mowen said. "I want to help support someone to run against Gates, someone who is fair and seeks justice for all and not just defendants."

Mowen said while he and the other victims' family members "would have been shocked" if the jurors had settled on anything less than death for Johnson despite Gates' handling of the case, he was relieved at the final decision.

"I'll feel awesome once it's (killing Johnson) is carried out," Mowen said. "I'd like to do it. I'd like to kill all 83 (inmates on death row in Nevada). I think they should be killed and we should save the money being spent on housing them on programs to prevent more kids from becoming a Donte Johnson."

Prosecutor Robert Daskas said the jury's verdict "now makes 26 people that said Donte Johnson should pay for the crimes he committed," Daskas said.

Daskas was referring to the fact that there were 12 jurors who sentenced Johnson to death on Thursday, 11 who had reached the same conclusion at the first trial and three judges who concurred as well.

"I would be shocked if anyone even suggested that Donte Johnson didn't get a fair hearing," Daskas said. "However one might suggest the state did not get a fair hearing."

The decision that apparently bothered prosecutors the most was Gates' decision to bifurcate the penalty phase, which is not required under Nevada law.

"I'm experienced in capital cases and I've never seen a bifurcated penalty phase," prosecutor David Stanton said. "It's fundamentally unfair to the state and it's not required by the law for good reasons."

Gates required the jury to first had to decide if Johnson was even eligible to be considered for the death penalty.

The jurors had to weigh the aggravators in the case against the mitigating evidence presented. The aggravator was the fact Johnson was convicted of killing more than one person. Johnson's defense lawyers presented mitigating factors regarding Johnson's hard childhood and the way it affected him.

Under the rules of a bifurcated penalty phase the jury did not hear from the victims' families until after they determined Johnson was eligible for the death penalty. Unlike a jury deliberating about a person's guilt or innocence, a decision regarding death penalty eligibility does not have to be unanimous. Only one juror had to determine the mitigating evidence outweighs the aggravators for Johnson to avoid facing the death penalty.

For Daskas and Stanton the list of questionable decisions Gates made was lengthy.

-- Due to Gates' rulings the jury did not hear about the strangulation of Darnell "Snoop" Johnson in August 1998 at the Thunderbird hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard near Charleston Boulevard, which has never been prosecuted. Donte Johnson is considered the prime suspect in the death.

-- Gates also did not allow the jury to hear or read some 20 letters Johnson has written since he was originally sentenced to death. In the letters Johnson calls himself "General" and refers to his accomplices in the murders, Sikia Smith and Terrell Young, as his soldiers. He also urges them to convince others to testify on his behalf.

The U.S. Supreme Court has firmly held that the press and the public have a constitutional right to attend criminal trials and pretrial proceedings and may not be excluded unless the court makes findings on the record that closure is required to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve those values.

The rulings, coupled with Gates arriving 90 minutes late for the jury's decision that Johnson was eligible for death, weighed heavily on Sandy Viau, whose son Tracey Goringe was one of the victims.

"The stress in this case has been worse than the three other proceedings," Sandy Viau said. "In the others I worked before and after. There is no way I could have done it this time, I haven't worked in three weeks."

While much got lost in the penalty phase as to who Johnson's four young victims were, Tracey Gorringe's brother, Nick, who lived with his brother and his three friends, put their lives in perspective.

Nick Gorringe said the group used to follow the jam-band Phish and ""would all go to concerts and music festivals because there was a lot of love there, my brother and all the other victims always wanted to be around that feeling."

He said Tracey was "a very peaceful man" who wouldn't have understood how Johnson could have done this."

But also, Nick Gorringe added, "he (Tracey Gorringe) would have been upset about the whole criminal justice system and how the victims don't have the same rights as the defendants."

Although the victims' families gained some sense of closure on Thursday the memories and wounds likely will be reopened in four months when the retrial of Johnson's previously convicted accomplice, Terrell Young, begins.

The Nevada Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Young because during Young's initial trial, which resulted in Young being sentenced to life in prison without parole,District Judge Joseph Pavlikowski failed to properly deal with Young's contention that there was animosity and a lack of communication between Young and his court-appointed lawyer Lew Wolfbrandt in 1999.

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