Jury Again Votes Death Penalty in Tustin Woman’s Killing

John Galen Davenport, who won a reprieve from Death Row four years ago on his conviction in the 1980 murder of a young Tustin woman, was handed a new death verdict Thursday by a second jury after just five hours of deliberation.

Davenport, known as Honda Dave to his biker friends, was the last of four county men whose death sentences were reversed by the state Supreme Court under then-Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird. The others--Marcelino Ramos, Rodney Alcala and Theodore Frank--had already been sent by new juries back to San Quentin Prison with new death sentences.

Davenport’s mother, Joan Legat, who had driven 14 hours from her home in Utah for her son’s new trial, shut her eyes tightly when she heard the verdict, then broke into tears.

“I just know Johnny didn’t do it,” she said as she sobbed into a handkerchief outside the courtroom.

Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey, who presided over the 2-month penalty trial in Santa Ana, scheduled sentencing for June 23. The judge is not bound to pass the sentence voted by the jury, but since the new death penalty law passed in 1977, no Orange County judge has reduced a death verdict.

Davenport’s attorney, Gary M. Pohlson, left the courtroom downcast. “It’s a big disappointment,” he said, shaking his head.

But Davenport’s co-counsel, Richard L. Schwartzberg, a zealous opponent of the death penalty, questioned whether the political climate in California gives a defendant a fair chance in capital-punishment cases.

“If a prosecutor in this state decides to go after the death penalty,” he said, “your chances of preventing such a verdict (are) about like walking into a tunnel with a train coming at you and yelling stop with your hand up in the air.”

But Davenport’s attorneys also recognized the overwhelming evidence against their client. They did not contest Davenport’s guilt, but concentrated on testimony from members of Davenport’s family. His mother, sisters, nieces and nephews praised him for providing them with love and comfort, even from his jail cell.

Davenport, now 34, who lived in Tustin before going to prison, wrote a moving, six-page statement in which he asked jurors to spare his life. But he never got a chance to deliver the statement, as his attorneys decided they could not risk exposing him to cross-examination by Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L. Robinson.

Davenport was convicted more than 8 years ago of the March 27, 1980, stabbing death of Gayle Ann Lingle, 30, whose nude body, impaled on a 4-foot wooden stake, had been found in a vacant field in Irvine.

The stake was a key issue. The jurors at the first trial found that its use amounted to torture, because the victim was impaled while still alive. That provided the special circumstance of torture, which permitted jurors to return a verdict of death.

Four years later, the Bird court upheldDavenport’s conviction, along with the finding of torture. But the high court ordered a new trial to determine Davenport’s punishment, citing errors by both the judge in instructing the jury and by the prosecution in closing arguments.

The new jury, after 3 weeks of testimony, had just one issue to decide: whether to urge Davenport’s return to San Quentin’s Death Row or to call for life in prison without possibility of parole.

The key witness against Davenport was Suzanne Tewes, who also testified in his 1981 trial. Davenport stabbed Tewes 22 times during a 1974 burglary at her Tustin apartment. Although she suffered permanent injuries, she survived and identified Davenport as her attacker, leading to his conviction in that earlier case.

At both trials, Tewes’ testimony was used by prosecutors to show the viciousness of Davenport’s criminal past. Jurors at the 1981 trial said Tewes’ moving testimony had made the difference. Robinson, the prosecutor, said Thursday that jurors told him after the verdict that Tewes’ testimony about the terror she was subjected to had weighed more heavily with them than all of the testimony from Davenport’s family.

Served 4 Years for Attack

Davenport served 4 years in prison for the Tewes attack. He had been paroled from prison just 8 months before Lingle’s murder.

Davenport had been seen leaving the Sit ‘n Bull bar in Tustin with Lingle on the night of her murder. The most crucial evidence against him was the unique and distinct tread marks of the English tires from Davenport’s 350 Honda motorbike, which were left in the dirt near the victim’s body.

Davenport readily admitted the attack on Tewes, saying he had been high on drugs. But he denied killing Lingle, saying in one jailhouse interview: “I didn’t kill her; I will never admit to something I didn’t do.”

That denial created a dilemma for his attorneys: If Davenport was allowed to read his plea for life, Robinson, through cross-examination, would have a chance to re-create for jurors the Lingle death, accompanied by Davenport’s refusal to admit guilt. If Davenport did not testify, jurors would be left with many unanswered questions.

Defense attorneys finally called Davenport to testify--but only to verify that he had created drawings and paintings that had been introduced as evidence. Because his testimony was limited to that, the prosecutor was not allowed to bring up the murder of Lingle in cross-examining Davenport.

After the verdict, Pohlson said the decision against letting Davenport read his statement had been difficult.

‘Only Appropriate Verdict’

“Whether it would have made a difference is something we’ll probably talk about for a long time,” he said.

Robinson, the prosecutor, called the jury’s decision “the only appropriate verdict in light of the viciousness of Davenport’s crimes.”

Pohlson asked jurors to spare Davenport for the sake of his family. “I’ve been trying to save John Davenport’s life for more than 8 years,” Pohlson told them. “Now I have to turn that job over to you.”

In his statement, Davenport suggested that even behind bars, a person can provide society with some good.

“He can be a living example to all who know him, an example of what roads not to choose, and what decisions not to make, while traveling through life,” Davenport wrote. “I love my family, especially my nephews and nieces, and do not want to ever see any of them follow the road I have taken. . . . Who knows better than me that it is a dead-end street? Who can relate that to them better than I?”

Asked after the verdict about the plea for mercy, prosecutor Robinson offered a different view:

“John Davenport can be a better example if he’s dead. How can he be a good example in prison if he is not willing to tell the unbridled truth about his crimes?”