Medina Sentenced to Die in Murders of 3 Clerks

Teofilo (Junior) Medina, who was convicted in the shooting deaths of three convenience store clerks and accused of killing a fourth during a three-week robbery spree in 1984, was sentenced to death Wednesday by an Orange County Superior Court judge.

After emotional testimony from relatives of the victims, Judge James K. Turner announced that he would formally approve the recommendation handed down by a jury in December--that Medina should die in the gas chamber at San Quentin prison.

Turner described Medina’s conduct during the 1984 robberies that left four clerks dead as “cruel, depraved and violent” and said the case was a “classic, textbook example of why there is a need for the death penalty.”

In approving the jury’s recommendation, the judge also rejected a plea by defense attorneys to reduce the sentence to life in prison without parole. Although a string of psychiatric specialists had testified that the killer is sane, all had agreed that he has grave problems with unknown causes, said defense attorney Ronald P. Kreber.

But Turner said he couldn’t accept insanity as a defense. “The jury didn’t buy it, and I don’t buy it,” he said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan Brown, who said he has never seen anyone more deserving of execution, said he also wasn’t persuaded by the insanity plea. “I can’t help but be struck a little bit by counsel’s argument that the defendant’s sentence should be reduced to life without parole because he is different,” Brown said. “He is different than anyone we’ve ever seen. He’s different because he’s so mean and so vicious and absolutely devoid of conscience. . . . That makes him so different that it militates for the death penalty.”

Whatever the sentence, Kreber said, nothing will end the families’ suffering. He argued that Medina’s mental state and the possibility that an inordinate amount of death penalties are handed down to Latino prisoners were reasons to reduce the sentence. “Life without parole is not giving the defendant any big break,” he said.

But relatives of the four victims said nothing short of execution would be acceptable to them.

Horacio Ariza, whose son, Horacio Jr., was killed at a Santa Ana gas station and mini-market on Oct. 18, 1984, said he wanted “to send a clear message to the world that in our country, no crime will go without punishment, regardless of it being a small crime or a very serious crime. . . . While my beloved son can never be brought back and while nothing will help diminish the pain in my heart, I realize some comfort knowing that justice was served.”

Medina, who had interrupted the trial in anger on several occasions and once tried to walk out when he spotted a newspaper photographer in the audience, remained impassive during the sentencing. He refused to look at family members, even as some of them addressed their comments directly to him.

His only action was to request that Kreber ask for a 30-day delay because of Medina’s treatment for more than 30 stab wounds and a punctured lung inflicted by a fellow jail inmate in 1985. Turner denied the request when Kreber admitted that his client’s mental ability had not been impaired.

Medina’s two sisters, who testified during the trial that they would help the killer rejoin society if acquitted, and his godmother were present Wednesday and cried when the death sentence was announced.

Kreber said he didn’t see any reason to ask Medina’s relatives to request leniency from the judge. “They’ve been through enough,” he said.

Members of victims’ families, meanwhile, echoed a desire to see the 43-year-old man die for his crimes.

Joseph L. Metal, whose son, Douglas, 23, was shot to death at the Garden Grove Drive-In Dairy on Nov. 4, said Medina took his son’s life for a few dollars and deserves to die. “I’m a little harsh with this, but life has been very harsh with me,” he said.

Carmen Cabrera, Horacio Ariza Jr.’s mother, said she hopes the “new California Supreme Court . . . will not allow you to go off and make sure that you are punished as you punished my son.” After her testimony, she began to sob and had to be helped from the courtroom.

Ronald Martin, whose son, Craig, was killed in a Corona mini-market the day after Ariza’s death, said he would be able to argue for leniency had Medina been drugged or clearly insane. “It’s hard for me to say anyone should be put to death. But this man should be,” he said.

Turner agreed to delay until Monday a hearing on sentencing for several other crimes for which Medina has been convicted, including three robberies, five burglaries and one attempted robbery. Brown said a sentence on those crimes would be stayed and would take effect only if the death penalty is reversed by the Supreme Court.