Jury Rejects the Death Penalty for Holland

Despite Alan Brett Holland’s callous statements and bizarre courtroom antics, a jury spared the convicted killer from execution Friday after deciding his motives were unclear.

Given their lingering doubts about the case, jurors said they voted in favor of a lesser punishment--life in prison without the possibility of parole--after 2 1/2 days of contentious deliberations.

“It was a very difficult decision,” said juror Gail Davidson. “We were split for a long time.”

The dissent among the panel centered on whether Holland killed 65-year-old Mildred Wilson in 1996 out of anger or to steal her car and purse.

The question was crucial because Holland could only be sentenced to death if the jury found carjacking or robbery were elements of the crime.

Jurors decided Holland did commit those crimes, along with first-degree murder, when they convicted him last December.

But after his conviction, Holland wrote a letter to the prosecution stating that he shot Wilson because she insulted him--not because he intended to rob her.

“I killed the ol’ goat because she didn’t shut up,” Holland wrote. “I feel no remorse and I also feel no guilt.”

That letter--despite its tone--caused jurors to doubt their earlier verdicts and raised questions about whether the death penalty would be appropriate.

“The letter he wrote explaining what happened changed everyone’s mind,” said juror Chris Lodter, a 42-year-old printer from Simi Valley.

“There is some question as to whether he was there specifically to rob and take her car, or if it was an afterthought,” said jury forewoman Denise Lutz, a Ventura resident and court reporter.

“With that question,” she said, “I couldn’t go for the death penalty.”

But not everyone agreed. At one point during the deliberations, jurors said the panel of eight men and four women was evenly split with six voting for life in prison and six voting for death.

“It got hairy there for a while,” said juror Linda Marquez, a county social services employee who lives in Ventura. She was one of the last holdouts for the death penalty. “I’m just glad the whole thing is over.”

For Holland, the jury’s decision to spare his life seemed to bring little relief. The 31-year-old Hollywood man sat quietly with his head down, not even making eye contact with his lawyer when the verdict was read.

“He was quite stunned,” defense attorney Willard Wiksell said outside the courtroom. “He had tears in his eyes. He was convinced he would be given the death penalty.”

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Although in his letter Holland said he felt no remorse for his crime, Wiksell said his client feels guilty and knows he will be punished.

“He’ll die in jail,” the lawyer said. “He is very, very sorry.”

Holland’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 19. Wiksell told the judge he wanted time to further investigate Holland’s story before filing a motion for a new trial.

The lawyer plans to contest the jury’s findings regarding carjacking and robbery in light of Holland’s statements. If the allegations are dismissed, Holland could be eligible for parole.

One of the first issues jurors discussed when they got the case for deliberations was Holland’s bizarre behavior during the trial and the effect it had on them.

Lodter said jurors were upset most by something courtroom spectators didn’t see--Holland looking at each juror and resting his hand on the side of his face, nose or chin with his middle finger sticking up.

“He’d look at you and flip you off,” Lodter said. “I wanted to laugh in his face . . . but I didn’t want to rile him up.”

While he was on the witness stand, Holland also called the jurors “scumbags” for convicting him.

“That was one of the first things we talked about,” said juror Nicole Luciani, 25, of Camarillo. But she said that Holland’s antics had little effect on the jury’s decision.

“You have to look at the whole picture,” she said. “I think there is something mentally wrong with him.”

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Holland was convicted of murder Dec. 8 for fatally shooting Wilson once through the heart in the parking lot of a Ventura shopping center on July 20, 1996.

During his weeklong trial, prosecutors presented a string of damaging evidence to link him to the slaying. The bullet taken from Wilson’s chest was matched to a handgun police found on the defendant when he was arrested. And Wilson’s credit card was used by Holland to buy auto parts, receipts showed.

Four months after the killing, Holland admitted to authorities that he shot Wilson. The confession came after a failed suicide attempt, according to court testimony.

“I didn’t mean to shoot her,” Holland told a sheriff’s deputy at the jail. “I didn’t know that she would die when I shot her. I don’t want to go to jail. I just want to die.”

After the prosecution rested its case, Holland’s attorney declined to call a single witness. And after little more than 90 minutes of deliberations, the jury found Holland guilty of first-degree murder and other charges.

It was before the start of the penalty phase that Holland sent the letter to prosecutor Donald Glynn saying he did not kill Wilson to steal her car. He said he killed her because she insulted him.

Against the advice of his attorney, Holland then took the stand during the penalty phase to hammer that point home.

“I did not wake up that day thinking I would go and kill Mildred Wilson,” he told the jury. “She got out of the car and I thought she was going to give me some money.”

Holland told jurors that he was panhandling at the Poinsettia Pavilion.

“And she started saying, ‘I’m sick and tired of people beggin’ and borrowin’ and on and on . . . She wouldn’t leave me alone,” he testified. “She put her finger on my chest . . . so I pulled out the gun and shot her.”

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Chained to his chair with his feet shackled, Holland burst out in sudden fits of laughter throughout his testimony, often when recounting especially gruesome scenarios.

During the penalty phase, which began Jan. 12, Wiksell argued that Holland suffered permanent brain damage that impaired his judgment after bathing his dog with toxic flea chemicals as a child.

He also painted a picture of a troubled young man abandoned by his mother at age 14, who lived on the streets, using drugs and prostituting for petty cash.

“Nobody even threw him a bone,” Wiksell said in his closing argument of the penalty phase. “And he’s going to die friendless, neglected, with nobody to say anything nice about him.”

But Glynn argued there was no evidence that Holland had mental defects. And he told jurors not to trust the defendant’s testimony, saying that Holland’s word was worthless.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this man is a sociopath,” Glynn said.

Several jurors said the group did not buy the defense argument that Holland was an abused child who was brain damaged by flea-killing chemicals. And they felt no sympathy for Holland.

“He was not a nice guy and I don’t feel real sorry for him,” said Davidson, 44, a supervisor in the Ventura school district transportation department. “But he’s not going to have any fun where he’s going, that’s for sure.”

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Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Hilary E. MacGregor and Miguel Bustillo and correspondents Richard Warchol and Dawn Hobbs.