Lawyers to Argue War Stress Behind Deputy’s Slaying

Police were closing in on Michael Raymond Johnson that day last summer. They were about to confront him at his estranged wife’s home when he suddenly burst from a shower, firing at close range and killing a young sheriff’s deputy.

He ran naked from the house in Meiners Oaks, carrying two pistols and firing both of them at a deputy outside.

The slain deputy, 26-year-old Peter J. Aguirre, on the force only two years, left behind a wife and a preschool-age daughter.

These facts are not in dispute.

But defense attorneys hope to persuade a judge beginning today that Johnson, 49, was not in his right mind when he killed Aguirre in an execution-style shooting in Meiners Oaks. They say Johnson, who pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, suffers from a lingering mental disorder suffered during a year of combat in Vietnam, which led to his bizarre behavior that day.

Johnson, a Ventura resident, is also charged with kidnapping, spousal rape and related charges stemming from a string of assaults that ended in the July 17 gunfight with deputies, who were called to investigate a domestic dispute at the home of his distraught wife.

Special allegations that Johnson killed a police officer and committed kidnapping during the commission of a murder make him eligible for the death penalty, although prosecutors have not decided whether to ask for it.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys have gathered volumes of evidence in the past four months about the events leading up to Aguirre’s shooting, evidence that will be presented for the first time at today’s preliminary hearing.

Prosecutors, who plan to call about five witnesses, intend to argue that Johnson kidnapped his wife in a jealous rage and raped her just hours before shooting Aguirre to death.

The question of whether Johnson is a cold-blooded killer who intentionally shot Aguirre or a shell-shocked veteran who had no concept of his actions ultimately will be decided by a jury if the case goes to trial.

But to reach that point, prosecutors must convince a judge this week that there is enough evidence to warrant a trial.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley is confident that will happen, saying his case against Johnson is strong.

“It’s not a who-done-it,” Frawley said. “We know how it went down.”

On the afternoon of the shooting, according to documents filed by prosecutors, Johnson kidnapped his wife, Guillermina Alonso, at gunpoint from the Ojai home where she worked as a housekeeper.

He showed her a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol tucked in his waistband and a .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun stashed in a vest pocket.

Although the couple were separated, Johnson suspected that Alonso was having an affair with her daughter’s boyfriend and told Alonso that they were never going to be separated again, according to the prosecution report.

He told Alonso that he was going to rob an Ojai bank and take her to Mexico or Wisconsin. But first, Johnson drove up California 33 where the pair hiked to a grassy area and he allegedly raped her, the report said.

The couple returned to Alonso’s house on Encinal Avenue in Meiners Oaks. When Alonso’s daughter called the house, her mother told her--speaking in Spanish--that Johnson had two guns and planned to rob a bank. Her daughter asked if she should call the police, and Alonso said: “Yes.”

Johnson then placed his guns on the bathroom window sill and he and Alonso took a shower.

Meanwhile, four Ventura County sheriff’s deputies arrived at the house. Two went to a side entrance and two others--including Aguirre--knocked on the front door.

Alonso appeared at the front door wrapped in a towel, crying and speaking so quickly in Spanish that deputies could not understand her, court papers said. When the deputies asked where Johnson was, she motioned to the back of the house.

As she stepped onto the front porch, Aguirre walked inside, with his gun in its holster.

Seconds later, deputies outside the house heard two to four shots, and a naked Johnson ran out of the house firing both of his guns, court documents said.

Before running out of the house, prosecutors say, Johnson delivered a single execution-style shot to Aguirre’s head as he lay wounded on the floor.

Johnson, who was shot by deputies before his arrest, was taken to Ojai Community Hospital and later transferred to the Ventura County Medical Center. Before surgery, he spoke with a psychiatrist called by the district attorney’s office and admitted to the kidnapping and shooting.

“The officer said, ‘Put your hands where I can see them.’ And I just jumped right in front of him, like a reaction to the situation,” Johnson told the psychiatrist about his confrontation with Aguirre, according to a transcript of their discussion.

During the conversation, Johnson said he felt as if he was in a movie and described his confrontation with deputies as a suicide attempt.

“I don’t think I could kill myself, but I was hoping that the officers would kill me,” he said.

Johnson told the psychiatrist that he married Alonso in 1985 as a favor to his boss so she could remain in the country legally. (He and Alonso had not begun a romantic relationship until last spring, according to prosecutors.) Then he admitted to one of the charges against him: “I kidnapped her, you know?” he said.

Defense attorneys have filed a motion to keep these statements out of the court proceedings, and prosecutors are seeking to retain them. The issue is expected to be resolved during the preliminary hearing.

Prosecutors plan to call three police officers and a district attorney investigator to testify at the hearing about their interviews with witnesses. They also plan to call Johnson’s wife to testify about the allegations of kidnapping and rape.

Defense attorneys have subpoenaed 30 witnesses, but Deputy Public Defender Todd Howeth would not say who they were or what they would be testifying about. A motion recently filed by the defense indicated that attorneys plan to call Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury to testify about a brief conversation he had with Johnson at the Ojai hospital.

Howeth said Friday that he did not want to discuss his case prior to the preliminary hearing. “We haven’t had our day in court yet,” he said.

He did say that defense attorneys intend to “aggressively confront the allegations and developments of what actually happened that day.”

In a statement released to the media in September, defense attorneys provided a glimpse at their case and a short profile of their client, whom they described as a troubled man whose experiences in Vietnam brought on emotional problems that went untreated for many years.

Born in Burlington, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 1947, Johnson was a high school athlete who at age 18 enlisted in the military. He served in Vietnam in an artillery brigade, seeing combat for one year.

Johnson received an “undesirable discharge” and returned from the war in the fall of 1968. Attorneys did not say why he was discharged.

According to his attorneys, Johnson was not the same after coming home and did not receive any counseling because he had no veteran benefits because of the discharge. Johnson, who has been in and out of prison during the last 10 years, most recently worked as a drug counselor in Ventura.

“From the date of his return from the war until the death of Deputy Aguirre, Michael Johnson has been plagued by the emotional problems he developed following the war,” his attorneys wrote. “We believe and hope to convince the district attorney that the death penalty in this case is not appropriate.”

Defense attorneys also say that Johnson is “very remorseful” for causing Aguirre’s death.

Frawley said the prosecution’s case should take three days to present during the preliminary hearing. Howeth said the defense will take an additional 10 court days.

To avoid such time-consuming proceedings, prosecutors typically seek grand jury indictments in capital murder cases instead of preliminary hearings. But in the Johnson case, indictment proceedings were suspended in early September.

Prosecutors said they were unable to explain what happened because grand jury proceedings are confidential. Defense attorneys have requested a transcript of the closed hearings, but a judge has not ruled on the matter.

Frawley said the delays in the case have been difficult for the family of Santa Paula native Peter Aguirre, who took religious studies classes before becoming a deputy.

“As much as you prepare them for the delays in the criminal justice system,” he said, “they still can’t understand.”