Jury Deliberates Death Penalty for Lindberg

Jurors will resume deliberating today whether to recommend the death penalty for the leader of a fledgling white supremacist group who chose to rob and stab a young man because he was Asian.

Calling the slaying of 24-year-old Thien Minh Ly “a travesty,” a prosecutor told the Orange County Superior Court jurors that there was only one just penalty--the death penalty--for Gunner Lindberg, 22, of Tustin.

“Consider the man who was killed,” Deputy Dist. Atty Debbie Lloyd said of the victim, a graduate of UCLA and Georgetown University. “Thien Ly was not just a statistic. His life meant something.

“He was a man attempting to better this world,” Lloyd added. “The defendant destroyed Thien Ly and his family.”

Lindberg’s attorney, David Zimmerman, admitted that his client’s crimes were “vile, worthless and senseless and thoughtless,” but he implored the panel to spare Lindberg’s life.

“He’s committed a crime against humanity, the worst there is,” Zimmerman said. “Is it going to make it better if you kill him?

“We’re not asking you to send him out into the street. . . He’ll never get out,” the defense attorney added.

The remarks were made during closing arguments in the penalty phase of Lindberg’s murder trial.

He was convicted last week of killing and robbing Ly on the tennis courts of Tustin High School in 1996 because he was Asian, in what is believed to be Orange County’s first death penalty case involving a hate crime.

In urging the death penalty, Lloyd told jurors that Lindberg had repeatedly “crossed the line” during his brief life and is beyond redemption. She detailed Lindberg’s criminal record and lengthy history of violence.

“This is a person who at every turn has done whatever he wants to do,” the prosecutor said. “Usually what he wants to do is hurt people.”

Zimmerman insisted that his client did not kill Ly out of racial hatred and was not out to rob him, the two special circumstance allegations that could lead to the death penalty.

He said Lindberg was showing off in front of his friend and blamed Lindberg’s troubles on a bad childhood.

“He never went to the same school two years in a row, his mother starts to date a bunch of drug addicts, he’s got a stepfather that beats him up. Now, how are you going to turn out with a life like that?” the defense attorney asked.