Slaying Was Not Planned, Jurors Told

When Michael Raymond Johnson rushed naked from the shower and shot Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Aguirre, he was not carrying out a premeditated plan to kill the officer, his defense attorney said in closing arguments Wednesday.

Instead, attorney Brian Boles told the jury, Johnson was a paranoid man who panicked when deputies arrived at the front door of his Meiners Oaks home in response to a domestic disturbance call.

“Michael Raymond Johnson is not guilty of first-degree murder,” Boles said. “This was a rash, unpremeditated, impulsive killing.”

Johnson is accused of murder and attempted murder for shooting Aguirre on July 17, 1996, and firing his guns at other officers. He is also charged with kidnapping and spousal rape for allegedly holding his wife hostage before the shooting.

Rebutting the prosecution’s claim that Johnson killed in cold blood and with premeditation, Boles argued Wednesday that when Johnson killed Aguirre he was just “reacting” to the situation.

Boles painted Johnson as a crazed, lovesick man who could not stand to be away from his wife.

“What we have is a man who turned up at his wife’s work with guns, because he wanted to be with his wife every moment of every night and every day,” Boles said.

“What we have is a man driving down the road in a Hawaiian shirt, talking about a movie called ‘Crazy Love,”’ Boles continued.

“What we have heard about is a naked man running from his bathroom holding two guns . . . a man, who when he was shot and fell to the ground, was heard mumbling over and over, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.”

He concluded: “That is the man, ladies and gentlemen, who the prosecution wants you to believe shot Deputy Aguirre in a cold, premeditated killing.”

But in her rebuttal to the jury, Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox argued that Johnson had a plan. He bought ammunition for his gun two weeks before the killing, she said, and he had the guns in the bathroom with him while he showered.

“That allowed him to act quickly, to act effectively,” she said. “Like a sniper, like an assassin. He already knew what he had to do to accomplish his plan.”

In a courtroom filled with spectators that included Aguirre’s parents and his widow, Fox argued that Johnson had a plan and stuck by it.

“His nakedness shows, not that he was acting irrationally, but when he heard the knock on the door, he decided it would take too much time to get dressed, and too much time to put on his glasses,” she said.

Aguirre was just trying to do his job, and he lost his life, she concluded.

“He was being a cop,” she said. “And he paid the price for that. The price he paid was his life.”

The jury will begin deliberating today.

They will have to decide whether Johnson killed Aguirre in the performance of his duties--one of the special circumstances charges. That allegation, paired with a murder conviction would make Johnson, a five-time felon, eligible for the death penalty.