Disallowed Testimony May Free 2 Feared Gang Members

Compton officials cringe when they think of Tracy Batts and Terrance McCrea getting out of prison.

The longtime gang members have criminal records for such felonies as robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Last year, they were convicted of murder and were sentenced to life behind bars.

“If there is one thing Compton doesn’t need,” said Capt. Cecil Rhambo, who heads the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department station in Compton, “it’s more people like that back in that community.”

But Batts and McCrea could very well be roaming their old haunts around Atlantic Drive and Caldwell Street within months.

A pair of prosecutors, trying desperately to make their case with jurors, caused a witness to divulge details that a judge had warned the lawyers to keep out of the case. As it turned out, that testimony gave defense attorneys all they needed to appeal their clients’ later murder convictions.

An appellate court, citing the prosecutors’ misconduct, not only overturned the convictions in August, but also ordered that Batts and McCrea not face another trial.

Whether that unusual ruling stands is now up to the state Supreme Court. The high court has yet to decide whether to review the case.

In the meantime, Batts, 35, and McCrea, 40, remain in state prisons. Prosecutors insist that they are dangerous.

However, Batts’ lawyer says he believes his client made some mistakes but has changed for the better. McCrea’s attorney declined to comment.

The chain of events that put Batts and McCrea in prison began Sept. 12, 1997, according to court documents and interviews.

About 8:30 a.m., 21-year-old Benczeon Jones was washing his Chevrolet Impala in front of his cousins’ apartment building on Atlantic Drive. Batts and McCrea had clashed with Jones before and warned him to leave the neighborhood, police said. Jones refused, and argued with Batts.

When Jones’ younger brother, Brian, heard the argument, he came out of the building. Brian Jones said Benczeon wasn’t going anywhere.

1 Victim Survived

Still angry, Batts and McCrea left, returning a few minutes later. Police said they walked up to the Jones brothers and fired 19 times with three semiautomatic pistols. Brian, who was struck several times in his chest and midsection, died. Benczeon, who was shot twice in the right leg, survived.

Batts, who was arrested the day of the shooting, was tried alone at the Compton courthouse in early 1998 because McCrea was on the run.

During the trial, Benczeon Jones told jurors what happened and identified Batts as one of the gunmen. Batts was convicted in June of that year, but appealed after someone else confessed to killing Brian Jones. The judge granted a new trial.

By the time the second trial got underway in November 1999, police had picked up McCrea on an outstanding warrant after stopping him for a traffic violation. He was tried along with Batts.

But Benczeon Jones, the prosecution’s key witness, was dead. In March 1999, two cars were chasing him when he jumped out of his car and ran into traffic on Alondra Boulevard in Compton. He was struck by several cars, and was fatally shot.

By law, the attorneys could not tell jurors why Jones wasn’t at the trial or why testimony from the first trial had to be read aloud. They could only say that Jones was “unavailable.” Superior Court Judge Jack Morgan emphasized several times that if the issue came up, the lawyers were to approach him before anything was revealed to jurors.

Then one day, Compton Police Det. Marvin Branscomb, a prosecution witness, was asked by defense lawyer Stanley Granville about why $1,500 was paid to Benczeon Jones as part of a witness relocation program four months after Jones’ testimony. Granville also asked repeatedly about why Benczeon Jones testified only once.

The judge never halted the questioning.

To Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip Stirling, the situation meant that he too could then ask Branscomb about Jones’ whereabouts. So when he got his chance, Stirling asked why Jones had not testified at a court hearing in May 1999.

Branscomb answered: “He was murdered.”

The judge reacted by immediately releasing the jurors. The defense team asked for a mistrial.

Desperately trying to prevent a mistrial, prosecutors told the judge that they simply wanted to set the record straight on why Jones testified only once. They also wanted jurors to know that Jones received money for his own protection, not as a payment for testimony against the defendants.

The judge was not soothed. He declared a mistrial, saying there was a “reckless disregard of the rights of the defendants.”

The prosecutors admitted in recent interviews that they disobeyed the court and let passion interfere with procedure. In hindsight, Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Droeger said, he and Stirling should have talked to the judge first.

“We were in a fight and we wanted to win, and that was probably why things unfolded the way they did,” Droeger said.

Double Jeopardy Argument Wins

Granville, who represented Batts, said the prosecutors were heavy-handed, and provoked the mistrial so they could have another chance to present their case.

“The case was getting away from them, and they thought they had to do whatever they could--even if it was borderline ethical,” he said in a recent interview.

Batts and McCrea were retried last year. That time a jury found them guilty of murdering Brian Jones and attempting to murder Benczeon Jones. As third-strikers with numerous offenses, they were sentenced to multiple life sentences.

The defense lawyers appealed the conviction, arguing that their clients’ constitutional rights against double jeopardy--being tried twice for the same charges--had been violated. The appellate court judges in August sided with the defense, calling the question in the earlier trial about Benczeon Jones’ murder a “bombshell.”

“The record leaves no doubt that the prosecutors knew their scheme would provoke a mistrial,” the appellate court ruling reads. “The prosecutors themselves thought things had taken a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse and went on to concoct their plan to scuttle the proceedings in the hope of starting afresh.”

The case has been referred to the State Bar of California for possible investigation and disciplinary action against the prosecutors.

Still, Droeger and Stirling insist that their only regret is that two criminals, described by one local officer as “modern-day desperadoes,” may return to the streets.

“They walk,” Stirling said, “and the world--and Compton--are notably more dangerous.”