Voluntary Manslaughter Verdict : Youth Guilty in Killing at Club

Christopher D. Comete, the youth accused of murder in the shooting death of 15-year-old Mark Miller outside the Hot Trax disco for teen-agers in Van Nuys, was found guilty Wednesday of voluntary manslaughter.

A Sylmar Juvenile Court judge rejected Comete’s claim that the shooting was in self-defense.

The maximum penalty that Comete, 16, of Canoga Park, could receive is confinement to the California Youth Authority until he is 25. He could also be assigned to a Los Angeles County probation camp or a juvenile hall, among other possible sentences. A sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 10, 1986.

Judge Burton S. Katz also rejected the prosecution’s request for a verdict of second-degree, or unpremeditated, murder.

Comete, wearing blue jeans and a gray sweat shirt, remained impassive but watched intently as Katz delivered the verdict in the non-jury trial. His father, Joseph Comete, sat beside him, listening to a translation of Katz’s statement delivered by a Vietnamese-language interpreter beside him.

Miller’s mother, Karen Miller, sobbed quietly and left the hearing room as soon the proceeding ended. She had attended all six days of the trial, methodically taking notes of testimony and attorneys’ remarks.

“He was going to be a big man,” Katz said of Comete before a hearing room occupied by a handful of relatives of Miller and Comete. “He was going to settle it like a man, and now he’s going to face the consequences of making that kind of decision. Society demands that.”

Calling Comete’s actions akin to a “Shakespearean tragedy,” Katz drew a picture of Comete and his victim as youths bent on settling an angry, senseless dispute that began two days earlier. It started with a comment Comete made about the punk-style hairdo worn by Miller’s girlfriend.

The remark triggered a dance-floor brawl between Comete and Miller and several of his friends. Outside the club later that night, taunts were exchanged. Comete told Miller: “Meet me after Hot Trax closes Friday night, and you’re going to get your head shot off,” Miller’s 14-year-old girlfriend, Natalie Molnar, testified last week.

Miller, of Hollywood, and about a dozen friends confronted Comete and a friend, 21-year-old Phuong (Tony) Nguyen in a parking lot behind Hot Trax about 2 a.m. on Aug. 17, several witnesses testified. Nguyen has pleaded not guilty in Van Nuys Superior Court to a charge of acting as an accessory to an assault with a deadly weapon.

Testimony in Comete’s trial differed on whether Miller and his friends were armed with sticks as they approached Comete.

Katz said he believed some of Miller’s friends had conspired to portray the attack as unprovoked. “I believe that someone unlawfully removed the stick before police arrived, to cover for Mark,” he said.

Continuing his summary, Katz noted witnesses’ testimony that Miller’s friends clustered and someone in the group yelled, “Let’s get him; let’s jump him,” as they set out across the parking lot for Comete and Nguyen. About the same time, Comete reached into a bag on the pair’s red motor scooter and tucked a .38-caliber pistol into his waistband.

A friend of Miller’s, Christopher Manoukian, 17, punched Comete, who responded by drawing the gun, pointing it at Manoukian and pulling the trigger, producing only a “click” as the hammer struck an empty chamber, Manoukian testified.

Comete then fired three shots--the first two probably warning shots--and the third struck Miller in the back of the head as he turned and ran, Katz said in summarizing the statements of several witnesses.

“He fixed on Mark Miller and he fired and deliberately killed Mark Miller in the heat of passion,” Katz said. “I find a specific intent to kill.”

The deadly shooting capped a series of problems, including vandalism and drunkenness, that the police said have plagued the three teen-age nightclubs in Los Angeles, all in the San Fernando Valley. It occurred two weeks before a city ordinance took effect that restricts the clubs’ hours of operation and requires strict adult supervision.

Because it raised the specter of gang activity at the clubs, the case was also seen by critics as evidence of the dangers youths may encounter at them.

Defense attorney Dennis Mulcahey contended that Miller and his friends were members of Fight for Freedom, a gang of white youths mainly from the Valley.

In a gruesome indication of gang involvement, police found the letters “FFF” scrawled in blood alongside Miller’s body.

But the trial shed little light on the gang.

Mulcahey altered his strategy of attempting to show that Miller and his friends belonged to the gang, instead arguing that Miller had a history of leading violent, unprovoked assaults.

He called four teen-age witnesses who testified that Miller assailed other teen-agers in two separate incidents in November, 1984, and May, 1985.

On Tuesday in court, Omar Davis, 17, showed Katz scars on his head and back that he said he received when Miller beat him with a metal chain outside a Tarzana ice-cream parlor.

Mulcahey asked the judge for a verdict of involuntary manslaughter, one of five possible verdicts ranging from first-degree murder to justifiable homicide.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Cesar Sarmiento, expressed disappointment with the court’s verdict of voluntary manslaughter after urging the court to find Comete guilty of second-degree murder. He contended that Comete had lost the right of self-defense by taking a loaded gun into the likely scene of a feud.

“What is abundantly clear is that the defendant was not an innocent,” Sarmiento told the court. “He was an aggressor who created the situation where he found himself.”

In his closing argument, Sarmiento also referred to previous testimony suggesting that Comete knew he might use his gun during the showdown.

On Monday, Jodi Hauser, a 16-year-old friend of Comete and Nguyen, said Nguyen told her the night of the shooting: “If you hear any gunshots, hit the ground.”

In seeking to construct an accurate scenario, Katz had to contend with testimony from two witnesses that included several discrepancies from statements made to police.

In one case, Manoukian admitted to an agitated Katz that he lied repeatedly to police and the court in his account of the killing.

“It’s an unfortunate, tragic, horrible killing,” Katz remarked. “The fact that Mark was in trouble before in no way justifies the taking of his young life.”

Miller’s father, Michael Miller, reacted to the verdict with disappointment and resignation.

“There is no justice,” he said. “It was a deliberate act of murder.

“Nothing the judge did is going to bring my kid back to me.