01/04/07 (CA):
Goodwin Convicted
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Motive clearly played a major part in the jury's deliberations as Michael Goodwin was convicted of the 1988 killing of racing legend Mickey Thompson & his wife. Expert evidence called by the defense in relation to a questionable 13 year old identification was apparently disregarded.
Goodwin, who has been in jail for five years awaiting trial, looked down and shook his head as the guilty verdicts to two counts of murder were read on the sixth day of deliberations.
He is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors said Thompson was shot repeatedly but kept alive and forced to watch the murder of his wife, Trudy, before he was shot in the head execution-style. Thousands of dollars in cash and valuable jewelry was untaken - leading investigators to believe the crimes were motivated by vengeance.
Goodwin was bankrupted in a bitter dispute with Thompson before the 1988 double murder in Bradbury.
From the beginning, Goodwin was the prime suspect, but legal difficulties meant it took investigators took 13 years to produce a case worth presenting to a jury.
Prosecutor Alan Jackson faced such obstacles as the lack of evidence at the crime scene implicating Goodwin. Many of the witnesses came forward years after the events and the gunmen - two black men who fled on bicycles - were never identified.
For defense attorney Elena Saris, the case against her client was always one of "naked suspicion."
Cameras were a permanent fixture in the Pasadena courthouse and more than a dozen reporters crowded the courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz. The five-week trial was covered in publications from the tabloid Globe to People magazine.
Saris attacked the prosecution as promoting "the Hollywood version" of the crime, a charge angrily denied by prosecutors. She called the case "a drama in a performance worthy of television."
Television exposure regularly prompted more witnesses to appear, including more than a half dozen who testified during the trial. Witnesses appeared on the television shows, reporting police accounts of the crime, as well as their own memories.
The most important witness to appear was Ronald Stevens, who lived three-quarters of a mile from the Thompsons. He testified he saw two men in a parked car holding binoculars just days before the double murder and identified Goodwin as the driver.
It was the sole connection between the defendant and the area around the crime scene and jurors pounced on the testimony. At their request, jurors were taken to see the spot where Stevens said he saw Goodwin.
Thirteen years after the killings, Stevens spoke with police and picked Goodwin out of a lineup. He first told police the driver was blond, but later said he had red hair. Stevens said the second man in the car was white, then changed his mind, identifying him as black.
The chance that a person could accurately identify a face seen briefly after that much time has passed was zero, according to a scientist and memory expert who testified for the defense - and drew an intense attack by prosecutors.
Stevens was a key element of the state's case, particularly because prosecutors did not call the star witness at a preliminary hearing two years ago, a former girlfriend of Goodwin.
That woman, Gail Hunter, said the couple was living in Colorado in 1992 when Goodwin came into her room, quite excited, and showed her a videotape of one of the "Unsolved Mysteries" shows on the Thompson killings. " 'Look what I've done and what I got away with,' " she said Goodwin told her.
Prosecutors declined to explain Hunter's absence. Saris said the reason was that the defense located Hunter's medical records and would have used them to discredit the woman's testimony.
As in most trials, there were disputes over what the jury would be allowed to hear. One story involved Joey Hunter, a man with long blond hair who was seen hitchhiking not far from the murder scene within an hour of the slayings. Hunter was identified by several eyewitnesses and failed three polygraph tests. He was never charged.
Saris repeatedly pushed to have the incidents involving Hunter admitted to the jury, but never persuaded Schwartz to allow it.
Thompson and Goodwin were once business partners but had a falling out. Thompson eventually won a $514,388 judgment against Goodwin. The state Supreme Court confirmed the award in January 1988 -- two months before the slayings.
Employees, acquaintances and business associates told jurors they heard Goodwin threaten to kill Thompson. Prosecutors called more than a dozen witnesses who reported various threats to Thompson and to his lawyer.
"Michael Goodwin told anyone who would sit still for five minutes he wanted Mickey Thompson dead," Saris conceded.
Saris leveled a withering attack at the lengthy investigation, pointing out that no evidence from the crime scene implicated Goodwin. She said the only physical evidence was DNA evidence "that does not match Michael Goodwin."
The extreme cruelty of the murder of his wife while Thompson was forced to watch shows Goodwin was the killer, prosecutor Jackson maintained.
"Michael Goodwin signed his name to this crime. He planned it from the start and it was executed exactly the way Michael Goodwin wanted it," Jackson said. "Michael Goodwin made good on his promise."
Thirteen years after the crime, Orange County prosecutors charged Goodwin, saying he planned the killings from his Laguna Beach home. An appeals court threw out that case, but before Goodwin could be freed, he was charged in Los Angeles. He has been in custody almost five years.
Goodwin's defenders have been quick to use the media -- television, publishing and the Internet. One website has grown from a focus on Goodwin to a general crusade for all those who claim they have been wrongly accused.
On the other side, Thompson's sister Campbell, former mayor of San Juan Capistrano, has become a national crusader for victims' rights. She has said Goodwin made good on repeated threats to kill Thompson.
She testified that he also threatened her at one of the hearings on Goodwin's bankruptcy. The bankruptcy trustee told jurors he bought a gun and a bulletproof vest after he heard of the Thompson slayings. Campbell, who has attended every day of the trial, used her access to the media and clout in the law enforcement community to promote the case.
© X-Pro 2007
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