Law Practice
Jun. 15, 2002
Jury Mulls Case of Man Charged in DA Threats
RIVERSIDE - A Superior Court jury is deliberating the case against a Moreno Valley man who authorities say pleaded guilty to attempted murder and then threatened to deep-six the well-known prosecutor who negotiated his prison sentence.
In a letter last year, defendant Russell McAllister told Supervising Deputy District Attorney John M. Davis that he intended to kill him for what he perceived to be a "raw deal" in his sentencing, a deputy attorney general argued during a trial this week.
"I'm going to have you deep-sixed," McAllister told Davis in the letter. "I'm going to have you killed in the name of my forefathers."
Jurors received the case after a two-day trial before Judge Robert McIntyre. The panel must decide whether McAllister is guilty of threatening a public official and making a criminal threat.
Davis, who supervises the district attorney's major crimes division, said McAllister's letter marks the second time a defendant has threatened him or his family. The first time, several years ago, involved a gang-related attempted-murder defendant who threatened Davis, Davis' mother and the judge who sentenced him to 120 years plus three life terms behind bars.
"It's something you have to watch out for," said Davis, selected as top prosecutor in the state in 1999 by the California Deputy District Attorney's Association for winning convictions in each of 34 murder cases he took to trial during an eight-year period.
"I try to treat defendants with respect when I'm around them," the prosecutor added. "I'm the one sending them down the river, so I don't need to be disrespectful. I usually don't have any problems, because, for the most part, they understand that I'm just doing my job as a prosecutor."
McAllister, 20, pleaded guilty in January 2001 to attempted murder, robbery, arson and other charges linked to a convenience store holdup in Moreno Valley. He and co-defendant Darren Anderson were sentenced to 16 years, six months, in state prison.
Davis said the letter he received from McAllister in August, which contained white supremacist rhetoric, asked him to withdraw the defendant's plea - or McAllister would find a way to kill him.
"In prison, McAllister started aligning himself with white-power organizations and was talked into believing he got a bad deal," the prosecutor said.
"That anger festered until he decided to get revenge," Deputy Attorney General Michael T. Murphy told jurors Wednesday.
The attorney general's office prosecuted the case in place of the district attorney's office, which declared a conflict because it employs Davis.
Deputy Public Defender O.G. Magno, counsel for McAllister, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In arguments to jurors Wednesday, Magno didn't deny that his client wrote the letter.
But he disputed its motive, saying the letter was nothing more than an "ignorant, yet angry attempt to take back a plea of guilty."
For a time after the threat, Davis said, he parked his car in a different place, took different routes to work and carefully scanned people as he walked across the street from the district attorney's office to the courthouse.
Statewide, threats against prosecutors by criminal defendants are on the rise, according to Lawrence Brown, executive director of the California District Attorney's Association.
A disgruntled defendant firebombed the home of two Napa prosecutors four years ago, Brown said. The prosecutors - husband and wife - weren't injured, he said.
"Unfortunately, death threats to prosecutors aren't uncommon at all," Brown said Thursday. "Threats have increased in recent years with the increase of gangs."
During a 31/2-year period in the late 1990s, Los Angeles prosecutors received 600 threats of different kinds from defendants, said Dan Felizzatto, a legislative advocate for the Los Angeles County district attorneys' office.
Brown said his association is pushing a bill, AB2023, which would give retired prosecutors the same benefits offered to retired law enforcement officers. The bill is pending before the Senate.
"It's a recognition of the hazards of a prosecutors' profession," Brown said. "For a law enforcement officer, dealing with an offender on the street is extraordinarily dangerous. But that danger doesn't end once the defendant comes into the judicial system."
Jason Armstrong & Sean Windle
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