Charge Reduced in Bully’s Death

In a high-profile case of a retired Navy officer convicted of killing the neighborhood bully, a judge reduced the conviction Thursday from murder to manslaughter and gave the killer a lighter sentence than prosecutors and the victim’s family had sought.

Superior Court Judge William Mudd said the victim, John Harper Jr., 48, was a “jerk” and “ne’er-do-well” who was responsible for the circumstances that led to him being shot to death in the semirural, hilly Dictionary Hill area of Spring Valley east of San Diego.

The case has garnered national attention as an example of a law-abiding homeowner who said he resorted to violence because authorities failed to protect him, his family and his neighbors from relentless harassment and intimidation.

Mudd sentenced Harper’s killer, retired Navy Cmdr. Danny Palm, to 10 years in prison rather than the possible 25 years to life in prison that Palm faced after being convicted of second-degree murder and using a firearm. A second-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory 15 years to life, and a firearm conviction carries a maximum of 10 years.

The judge said the killing was more appropriately “heat of passion” voluntary manslaughter rather than second-degree murder, as the jury had concluded. Mudd sentenced Palm to six years for manslaughter and four more for the firearms conviction.

“A good man plus a gun equaled a tragedy,” Mudd said.

With time off for good behavior, Palm could be paroled in seven years.

Mudd said he expects to be pilloried by victims rights groups for reducing the jury’s verdict but he insisted that not all victims are blameless. Harper, according to testimony, was a drug abuser who had terrified the neighborhood for years with reckless driving, threats, rock throwing and running cars off the road.

“Occasionally in the real world victims bring about their own death,” Mudd said. “The victim set the wheels in motion for his own death but it was not a legal killing or justifiable killing.”

Palm, 53, shot an unarmed Harper 13 times with a .45-caliber pistol Nov. 28, 1995, as Harper sat in his car after driving back to Dictionary Hill. Palm alleged that Harper told him, “You and your family are as good as dead.” Hours earlier, Palm and other residents were crestfallen when Harper had only received probation in a case in which he had been charged with ramming a woman’s car.

Neighbors had tried unsuccessfully for years to document a case against Harper to put him in jail or to make him stop his threatening behavior. The same neighbors begged for leniency for Palm. “We the neighbors have not stopped believing in him,” said Dave Tingle.

Palm’s family told of years of terror from Harper.

“John Harper was an uncontrollable drug addict who instilled incredible havoc and fear because logic didn’t apply to him,” Palm’s wife, Carol, tearfully told Mudd.

But members of Harper’s family decried Mudd’s decision, calling Palm a remorseless killer who felt his status as a former military officer gave him the right to be “judge, jury and executioner.”

“Basically our son was murdered for two reasons: reckless driving and to satisfy the ego of Danny Palm,” said Harper’s father, John Gordon Harper Sr.

He said that the media have been wrong to call his son a bully and that reporters instead should be reporting “a local unarmed man [was] killed in cold blood by the monster of Dictionary Hill.”

Harper’s sister, Juanita Luiz, called Mudd’s decision “an affront to my sense of fairness.”

The judge said he understood why the “understaffed and overworked” San Diego Sheriff’s Department had been unable to stop Harper because his actions never escalated to injuring people. Residents had complained to deputies that Harper often seemed to aim his car at other cars and pedestrians, including children.

In his testimony, Palm asserted that he had blacked out after confronting Harper and did not remember pulling the trigger. Harper had ingested methamphetamine earlier in the day, according to testimony.

Palm expressed no remorse for the killing during his testimony but only for “losing control.” A 29-year Navy veteran, Palm has told reporters that he feels no guilt for protecting his family and neighbors.

“Danny Palm only saw John Harper as a neighborhood bully, not a human being,” said prosecutor Blaine Bowman.

Mudd said his decision to show leniency was swayed by a letter from Palm’s wife of 34 years, Carol. In it, she said that true to his military training, her husband keeps his feelings bottled up inside and is not able to express regret for the killing.

“Dan is neither a vigilante or a hero,” Carol Palm told Mudd before the sentencing. “He is a human being.”