Death penalty David Allen Lucas Rapist Serial Killer throat slashing
Death penalty upheld in mass murders
The killings sent fear through the county in the late 70s, early 80s
On Thursday, the State Supreme Court upheld the death penalty issued 25 years ago for David Allen Lucas, who was accused of two women's throat-slashing murders and a 3-year-old child, and attempted another woman's murder, cases that at the time sent fear through the county.
Lucas, a Spring Valley carpet cleaner, was originally charged with the 1979-1984 murders of two other women and another child. All victims' throats have been slit. Some were almost decapitated.
The high court released a 231-page opinion addressing what the defense said were errors in the case's prosecution and punishment phases. The "collective impact of errors" robbed Lucas of due process rights and a fair trial, the defense said.
The court disagreed.
"We concluded that no errors or assumed errors were detrimental. Cumulatively, we conclude that the defendant is not entitled to revoke his decision," the ruling said.
In California, the state Supreme Court immediately challenges all death penalty cases. The court must find a new attorney to represent the defendant. If the court upholds the decision, defendant can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, although it may refuse to hear the case.
Supreme Court decision
At the time, prosecutor Daniel Williams said the killings were the most vicious and cold-blooded murders San Diego ever suffered."
The ruling acknowledged that the victims' wounds all "shared characteristics unlike anything the San Diego coroner had observed in the more than 20 years preceding the trial of the defendant.'"
There was no clear motive for murders and no sexual harassment evidence, the ruling noted.
In June 1989, a San Diego Superior Court jury convicted 34-year-old Lucas of murder in the 1979 slaughter of 31-year-old Suzanne Jacobs and her toddler son, Colin, in Usual Heights; the 1984 slaughter of 22-year-old Anne Catherine Swanke, a student at the University of San Diego, who was last seen when her car ran out of gas in La Mesa; and the 1984 attempted murder of 35-year-old Jodie Santiago Robertson of Seattle. Robertson testified in the trial that after cutting her throat, Lucas left her dead.
In the 1984 slayings of Rhonda Strang, 23, and Amber Fisher, a 3-year-old girl in her Lakeside house, the jury could not reach a verdict. Jurors blocked 11-1 for conviction.
The jury acquitted Lucas of assassinating real estate agent Gayle Garcia, 29, who was slain in a Spring Valley home she was showing prospective buyers.
Lucas was convicted in September 1989.
During the penalty phase of the trial, Dr. Alvin Marks, a professional and forensic psychologist, testified that Lucas had mixed personality disorder. He said Lucas came from a deeply dysfunctional family, had a father who beat him physically and emotionally, and Lucas picked up women's hate from his father.
When he was 18, Lucas was imprisoned in 1973 after being accused of raping a 21-year-old maid who worked for a family friend.
In an unrelated development on Thursday, State Attorney General Kamala Harris said she would challenge last month's decision by a federal judge that the state's cumbersome implementation of the death penalty violates the constitution's prohibition on cruel, unusual punishment.
Since the new death penalty system was introduced 35 years ago, the judge observed, over 900 people were sentenced to death but only 13 were executed.
He noted that death penalty appeals can continue for decades and as a result, most executed prisoners are likely to die of natural causes before their executions.
Since 2006, California has had an unofficial execution moratorium, with an appeals-court decision that the state must follow a new lethal injection procedure.
The last San Diego prisoner to die was Robert Alton Harris in 1992. Harris murdered two boys in 1978.