Killer Takes Over Defense in Penalty Phase of Trial

A 33-year-old North Hollywood man convicted of killing an off-duty Los Angeles police officer began cross-examining witnesses Monday after a Van Nuys Superior Court judge ruled he could serve as his own attorney.

Daniel Steven Jenkins stood before the jury that convicted him on July 27 of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the Halloween, 1985 shooting of Thomas C. Williams.

Judge Judith Meisels Ashmann last week refused a request by Jenkins to discharge his court-appointed defense attorneys, Howard R. Price and Janet Sherman, and represent himself during the penalty phase of his trial. She agreed instead to let him serve as co-counsel.

But Ashmann changed her mind after a closed hearing Monday in which Jenkins contended that he and his attorneys have had major tactical disagreements, Price said. Price refused to elaborate.

“You didn’t actually see me shoot your husband, did you?,” Jenkins asked prosecution witness Alma Monroe, who testified that she saw Jenkins and another man shoot her husband, Horace, on Thanksgiving Day, 1978. Alma Monroe was called by prosecutors because her testimony dealt with Jenkins’ character and past criminal behavior.

“I saw you shoot him and I saw him shot,” Monroe told Jenkins.

Jenkins in 1979 pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting of Monroe, which allegedly occurred after the couple’s son filed a police report against Jenkins for pistol-whipping him the day before.

Jenkins faces the death penalty or life in prison without possibility of parole for killing Williams, 42, who was shot eight times as he picked up his 6-year-old son from a day-care center in Canoga Park. The boy was uninjured.

Prosecuters contended that Jenkins killed Williams in revenge for testifying against him at another trial.