Vista

A Vista Superior Court jury on Thursday recommended the death penalty for Kurt Michaels, a 24-year-old Oceanside transient and former Marine who killed his girlfriend’s mother in her Escondido apartment in October, 1988.

Michaels had admitted stabbing to death JoAnn Clemons, 43, but argued that he should not be sentenced to death. He claimed he was responding to the woman’s physical abuse against her daughter, Christina Clemons, his 17-year-old girlfriend at the time.

Michaels sat impassively as the jury’s recommendation was read in the courtroom of Judge J. Morgan Lester, after three days of deliberations.

By state law, death sentences are automatically appealed.

Michaels was convicted June 6 for the stabbing, and the jury at the time found four special circumstances--that Michaels killed for financial gain, while lying in wait, and in the commission of a burglary and a robbery.

Formal pronouncement of the sentence will be July 17.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeff Broderick, in arguing for Michaels’ death, said in his closing arguments that, given his penchant for violence, Michaels would probably order his own death if he were on the jury.

Michaels served as his own attorney during the trial, but most of the legal chores were handled by his court-appointed legal assistant, attorney Mark Chambers, who argued unsuccessfully to the jury that, given Michael’s own, troubled background as an abused child and drug user, he should be forgiven and sentenced instead to life in prison.