Fate of Trio Is Now in 3 Juries’ Hands

The last of three juries began deliberating Wednesday the fate of three reputed white supremacists accused of beating the life out of a homeless man in a dirt lot in Lancaster because he was black, a crime which could send each of them to prison for life.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jacquelyn Lacey fervently argued to jurors that the trio beat Milton Walker Jr. to death with a stick and a pipe nearly four years ago for a status boost among a group of High Desert bigots who covered their bodies with tattoos and picked fights with minorities as they eagerly awaited a race war.

The killing, she said, earned them lightning-bolt tattoos, considered “a badge of courage” in their racist group.

She urged jurors to “give them society’s tattoo” and convict Randall Rojas, Ritch Bryant and Jessica Colwell of first-degree murder with the special circumstance that the killing was racially motivated, which carries the penalty of life without the possibility of parole.

“You must tell Miss Colwell that there is no room for this kind of madness, this kind of expression to follow us into the next millennium,” Lacey told the all-minority jury deliberating Colwell’s fate. “All of us have worked too hard, come too far.”

Three separate juries are hearing the hate crime murder case against the three accused in the 1995 attack on Walker. The jury in charge of Rojas’ fate began deliberations Monday, and the jury in charge of Bryant went into deliberations Tuesday.

Because Walker was beaten twice that November night and only one defendant was present both times, each is pointing the finger at the other co-defendants as the actual killers.

Rojas, 24, who allegedly hit Walker in the face repeatedly with a weathered board, even after he lay motionless, claims Bryant and Colwell, both 20, returned later to deliver the fatal blows with the same board and a metal pipe.

Bryant and Colwell say Walker was already dead when they arrived at the scene.

None of the defendants testified. The star witness was Michael Thornton, a former Nazi lowrider gang member who told authorities he and Rojas beat Walker senseless. In return for the testimony, Thornton will be tried separately on lesser charges.

Colwell’s lawyer said at worst his client hit a man who she thought was dead, but never explained why.

“Look at the size of this young lady,” attorney John Daley said Wednesday, summoning the slim, bespectacled Colwell. “And look at the injuries that were inflicted on the victim.”

He contrasted Colwell’s appearance with pictures of Rojas, who weighs more than 200 pounds, and whose body is covered with white supremacist tattoos.

“This is the guy who’s swinging the board,” Daley said. “This guy’s a home run hitter.”

Bryant’s attorney, Norman Kallen, agreed, pointing to a doctor’s testimony that Walker had to be standing when he suffered the fatal blows. It is incontrovertible that Walker never stood up after Rojas knocked him to the ground.

Prosecutors said Bryant egged Rojas on during the beating, shouting racial slurs, but Kallen said he was a mere bystander.

“The focus and responsibility lies solely with Mr. Rojas,” he told jurors.

Rojas’ lawyer, Donald Calabria, told his jury on Monday that his client not only is not responsible for the fatal blows, he had no intention of killing Walker, making him guilty of nothing more than assault with a deadly weapon.

In his final argument, Calabria said Rojas, Thornton and Bryant went to the vacant lot where Walker slept after a white woman claimed that Walker hit her. As they approached, they could see Walker was on the winning end of a physical confrontation with a white homeless man.

Calabria said Rojas did not go there to kill Walker, that it was Thornton who initiated the attack and that Rojas only hit Walker after Walker walked in Rojas’ direction with a knife.

The trio left Walker alive, Calabria said, and Rojas refused to return with Bryant, who allegedly was adamant about finishing Walker off.

“He has an opportunity to kill him and he does not want to exercise that opportunity,” Calabria told jurors. “He simply didn’t have the intent to kill Milton Walker.”

He characterized the race war as “wild ramblings of youths” and urged jurors to look past Rojas’ abhorrent views and evaluate the evidence free of emotion.

Lacey replied that it was precisely those views that led the defendants to murder.

She reminded jurors that Rojas had told an FBI agent months before the killing that he had planned to earn his lightning-bolt tattoo, which can only be worn by those who kill a minority. Both he and Bryant, got lightning-bolt tattoos on their arms after the killing, she said.

Each of the defendants bragged to their friends about the killing, Lacey said, and later confessed to striking Walker. Bryant even admitted to checking the bloody victim’s pulse when he returned to the lot, Lacey said, and, finding he was still alive, beat him.

Lacey argued that a medical examiner determined that the blows to Walker’s face contributed to his death. He found no post-mortem injuries.

“You don’t get to say ‘I hit him, but my buddy over there hit him more so he’s really responsible,” Lacey said. “You don’t get to stand back and say ‘I’m not as guilty as so and so.’ The law says you’re all guilty.”