Arguments to Begin for Death Penalty in Murder

A jury will begin hearing arguments today on whether a Monrovia man should be sentenced to death in the murder of an Altadena mother of four.

The jury last week found Jason Mency, 25, guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Marsha Lee Birch. Birch was killed as she left for work Jan. 3, 1997.

Jurors in Los Angeles found Mency guilty of the special circumstances that he used a gun and shot Birch during a robbery, which makes Mency eligible for the death penalty.

Birch’s relatives are expected to testify during the death penalty phase, according to the district attorney’s office.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Al McKenzie said Mency was stealing Birch’s purse at the time of the shooting.

Mency was also convicted on 59 other counts involving a five-month crime rampage in the San Gabriel Valley. However, jurors acquitted him in the slaying of a Monrovia woman and her fetus in October 1996.

A separate Los Angeles Superior Court jury is still deliberating over whether to convict an alleged Mency accomplice, La Min Johnson, 25, of Pasadena, in the murder of Birch. He could also receive the death penalty. That jury has already convicted Johnson in a series of robberies and assaults.

Prosecutors have alleged that between Sept. 18, 1996, and Jan. 3, 1997, the men robbed several homes at gunpoint, violently assaulting anyone who got in their way. The two men were charged with more than 80 crimes, prosecutors said.