CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LOS ANGELES
A gang member has been sentenced to death for murdering two people, including a 14-year-old girl who was shot as she crouched outside a Compton market.
A judge sentenced Steven Cheatham, 32, on Friday.
Cheatham was convicted in October of two counts of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted murder.
Prosecutors said Cheatham confronted Elvira Ramirez and two friends as she went to use a pay phone near the market in 2001.
He wounded her friends, then shot the girl in the back of the head and again in the leg after she fell to the ground.
None of the victims had any gang affiliation.
Cheatham also was sentenced for fatally shooting an unarmed man in the face in 1998 and wounding two people in 2000.
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