Jury to Weigh Verdict in Guards’ 3rd Murder Trial

The prosecution and the defense in the trial of two security guards accused of gunning down an Inglewood night club patron don’t agree on much of anything. But both sides are hoping that the third time is indeed a charm.

Two earlier trials ended with juries hopelessly deadlocked. Today, a third jury will begin trying to make the decision that the other two could not.

During closing arguments Thursday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mary Hanlon urged jurors to find both Abdul Malik Muhammad, 39, and Shaka Muhammad, 24, guilty of murdering a patron outside RBD-Joshua’s, a Manchester Boulevard night club for teen-agers, on March 31, 1990.

Witnesses testified during the trial that the two defendants, who are not related, became enraged when 19-year-old Kevin Davis made a derogatory comment about the young women inside the club.

After several minutes of arguing, witnesses testified, Davis called one of those involved in the dispute “gay” and then turned to step inside a car with a friend.

As Davis sat in the car’s passenger seat, Hanlon told jurors, Abdul Muhammad fired three shots at him through the side window, fatally wounding him. Shaka Muhammad, Hanlon said, stood in front of the car and fired a bullet through the windshield, missing Davis.

“It’s cold-blooded murder. There’s no question,” Hanlon told jurors.

But public defender James Cooper, who is representing Shaka Muhammad, said there is a key question: Are witnesses correct when they say it was the Muhammads who pulled the trigger?

“The evidence must be sufficient for you to leave this courtroom with a moral certainty, beyond a reasonable doubt, and I just don’t believe it is sufficient,” Cooper told jurors.

Cooper pointed to a number of discrepancies between what witnesses told police, what they testified to at the case’s preliminary hearing and what they said at trial. Most notable among the discrepancies, he said, is that several witnesses said three men were involved in the shooting, while the prosecution’s key witness said he saw only two.

Taken individually, he said, the discrepancies may be of little consequence, Cooper said. But taken together, he argued, jurors should question the ability of witnesses to know for certain who they saw that night.

Jurors are expected to hear closing arguments by Abdul Muhammad’s attorney before beginning deliberations this morning.