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The state's top
elected law enforcement official assumed responsibility for the
penalty phase of the case against Scott Dekraai after a
California appeals court upheld a lower-court order recusing the
Orange County District Attorney's Office over prosecutorial
misconduct.
Defense lawyers sought to remove local prosecutors and bar them
from seeking the death penalty on grounds that jailhouse
informants were improperly used to wring a confession from
Dekraai.
In agreeing to take the case away from the D.A.'s office and
assign it to the attorney general, the judge declined to
eliminate the death penalty as a possible punishment.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra said on Wednesday his office
would, indeed, seek capital punishment for Dekraai, a ex-tugboat
worker who pleaded guilty in May 2014 to eight counts of
first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder weeks
before he was due to go on trial.
Dekraai, then 42, was locked in a custody battle with his
ex-wife when he walked into an Orange County hair salon in
October 2011 armed with three guns, and opened fire on customers
and employees, shooting his victims at close range.
His former spouse, Michelle Fournier, was killed along with the
salon owner and five others.
After leaving the salon, Dekraai fatally shot 64-year-old David
Caouette, who was sitting in his sport utility vehicle parked
outside, prosecutors said.
Dekraai was arrested blocks from the bloody scene in the heart
of Seal Beach, a town about 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Los
Angeles known by its residents as "Mayberry-by-the-Sea" for its
bucolic, small-town ambiance.
"This tragic event has caused so much harm to far too many
families," Becerra said in a statement. "I have concluded that
the appropriate course of action is to seek the death penalty in
this case."
California, where voters in November narrowly approved a measure
aimed at hastening the court process for capital punishment
cases, is home to the nation's largest death row, with about 750
condemned inmates, but the state has not executed anyone since
2006.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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