D.A. Will Seek Execution in Rampages

Responding to a spate of mass killings around the country, including the one at an Anaheim hospital this week, Dist. Atty. Anthony J. Rackauckas announced Thursday that suspects prosecuted for these public rampages will automatically face the death penalty.

The first person affected is Dung Trinh, 43, charged Thursday with the murders of three employees at West Anaheim Medical Center. Before this change in policy, the decision on whether Orange County prosecutors would seek the death penalty was made by a committee of top officials at the district attorney’s office.

Legal experts believe Orange County is the only jurisdiction in the state to institute the get-tough policy, but some question the wisdom of the idea.

“There isn’t going to be any wringing of hands in Orange County about seeking the death penalty,” Rackauckas said. “The intention is to make it clear to the public, to anyone who might be thinking about . . . going out and arbitrarily killing anybody.”

In addition to being charged with killing Ronald Robertson, Marlene Mustaffa and Vincent Rosetti, Trinh was charged with attempted murder for allegedly firing at the supervising nurse. He is eligible for the death penalty because of the special circumstances of lying in wait and multiple homicides, officials said.

Authorities say Trinh opened fire at the hospital Tuesday morning, just hours after his 72-year-old mother died at a nearby medical center. At the end of the rampage, he shouted, “You killed my mother,” in apparent reference to her care at the hospital several months earlier for hip replacement surgery.

Hospital officials have said a preliminary review of Mot Trinh’s file showed nothing unusual, although they will perform a more thorough examination later.

Police said that both .38-caliber snub-nosed revolvers Trinh carried with him--one a Smith & Wesson and the other manufactured by Charter Arms--were registered to him. He had owned the weapons for several years, police said.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Joe Vargas said that because Mustaffa worked on the second floor, where Trinh’s mother stayed, the likelihood is high the nursing assistant was involved with her care.

Vargas said Trinh didn’t enter the hospital with a target in mind, but once he got to the second floor, he began firing at people he recognized.

Cameras at West Anaheim Medical Center entrances should provide police the time Trinh entered the hospital, detectives said.

When Trinh arrived at the courtroom Thursday dressed in his orange jail coveralls, relatives of the shooting victims gasped. “Oh my God,” one of them said. “That’s him?”

The 5-foot-5-inch Trinh was dwarfed by his interpreter and his attorney. His face was badly bruised. Detectives said they think inmates at the Orange County Jail beat him up.

Some legal scholars criticized Rackauckas’ new policy as punting an important part of his job. They also said that in most of those cases, prosecutors push for execution anyway.

They did not think there were any legal problems with the policy, however.

“D.A.s are supposed to exercise discretion in using the death penalty,” said Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen. “How can they say they’re exercising discretion if they’re announcing in advance that all cases will be handled in a particular way?”

Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg wondered what the policy would accomplish. “Can we distinguish between the random and personally motivated?” he said. “It strikes me as grandstanding and not a good idea. I can’t believe the review process is that onerous.”

Rackauckas made his announcement a day after the latest shooting, this one in Fort Worth, Texas, where a man fired shots in a Baptist church, killing seven people and wounding seven before shooting himself to death.

Anaheim police believe more people at the hospital would have been shot had one of the victims, 51-year-old Robertson, not wrestled Trinh to the ground and disarmed him. The suspect had dozens of ammunition rounds in a pouch when arrested.

Trinh told Anaheim detectives his mother didn’t seem the same after hip replacement surgery and he blamed the hospital staff. “She’s an elderly woman,” Vargas said. “She’s just had surgery. Of course, she’s not going to seem the same.”