Witness Testifies Johnson Served Well in Vietnam

Wading through the rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam, Michael Raymond Johnson was a smart soldier who served his country well, a defense witness testified about the convicted killer Monday.

“He was a good worker in the best section we had,” said William L. Clark, who served as Johnson’s executive officer in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. “We never had any problem with him.”

Clark was one of two Vietnam veterans called to the stand by defense attorneys on Monday to paint Johnson as more than a psychotic killer.

Clark testified that the man who fatally shot Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter J. Aguirre on July 17, 1996, three decades earlier had risked his life for his country in an artillery unit--one of the war’s most dangerous jobs.

Johnson, 50, endured summers so humid that military uniforms stored in bags were attacked by mildew or insects in a matter of days, Clark testified. He and his company slept in jungles infested with poisonous snakes and rice paddies buzzing with biting insects.

And as a member of the team that protected the less heavily armed infantry soldiers with huge howitzers, Johnson survived repeated mortar and sniper attacks.

Last month the jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder for killing Aguirre, who answered a domestic-disturbance call.

The jury must now decide whether Johnson should be executed or sent to prison for life.

After three days of emotional testimony from Aguirre’s family and friends last week, the defense plans to spend this week trying to convince the jury to spare Johnson’s life.

In opening arguments last week, defense attorney Todd Howeth argued that Johnson has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia for years, and thus should not be executed. He also said Johnson has repeatedly tried to turn his troubled life around. In aggressive cross-examination Monday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Hardy sought to show that Johnson, who left the Army with a less-than-honorable discharge, was unreliable and irresponsible.

In other testimony, defense attorneys called mental-health experts to show that Johnson suffered paranoid delusions so severe he had to take a powerful anti-psychotic medication to control them.

Indeed, when a sheriff’s deputy searched Johnson’s car the day of Aguirre’s slaying, he found an empty bottle of the medication in the glove compartment.

A psychiatrist testified that Johnson is not only a paranoid schizophrenic, but that he was in a state of “extreme mental disturbance” on the day he shot Aguirre.

“Did he suffer from paranoid schizophrenia on the night of July 17, 1996?” Howeth asked Dr. Charles Hinkin, a UCLA neuropsychologist who works at a veterans hospital diagnosing mental illness.

“Yes, he did,” Hinkin said. “That’s why he committed the crime.”

Hinkin said his diagnosis resulted from extensive tests and review of thousands of pages of records on Johnson.

As one example of a paranoid delusion, he cited Johnson’s belief that those who eat “nonorganic” food are trying to control his mind and poison the world.

He also noted Johnson’s belief that he was a “warrior for Krishna,” when he robbed a McDonald’s to keep customers from eating meat of the sacred cow.

Testimony by defense witnesses will continue today.