Latest News 2014 May Man Enters Guilty Plea in 2011 Calif. Salon Killing Spree

Man Enters Guilty Plea in 2011 Calif. Salon Killing Spree

When S.D. stormed into the hair salon his wife worked in and shot her and seven others to death it made national news in 2011. Now, three years later, S.D. has agreed to plead guilty according to his defense attorney and as reported by the Huffington Post.

The apparent motive for the shooting spree was the child custody battle between S.D. and his ex-wife over their 8 year-old son. According to the police, S.D. entered the Seal Beach Salon wearing a bulletproof best and carrying three guns.

S.D. was charged with the death of his wife, the owner of the hair salon and six others – including a man sitting in his car in the salon's parking lot. One person survived the shooting.

It took the police only minutes to stop S.D. and arrest him. The police report shows that S.D. told officers, "I know what I did."

During a hearing in an Orange County Court, Scott Sanders, the defense attorney for S.D., said that his client was now willing to enter the guilty plea. Sanders said that S.K. was aware that he may face a lifetime prison sentence.

Earlier S.D. had only offered to plead guilty in exchange for a deal that would allow multiple life sentences as opposed to facing the death penalty. The prosecution refused to consider the deal.

With the change in his plea, it doesn't seem likely that he will receive a more lenient sentence.

According to former federal prosecutor Lawrence Rosenthal, who is now a law professor at Chapman University, it is not unheard of for defense attorneys to make such a move for a defendant.

Rosenthal said that an attorney may worry that jurors will loose faith in a defense team once they've found a defendant guilty. Jurors, Rosenthal added, can also get a little annoyed when they learn that their duty is not complete – they now have to go though the penalty process and issue a second verdict.

Rosenthal said that it is with great risk, though thought out, that S.D. hopes that his change in his verdict will allow jurors to feel some sympathy towards him.

Sanders wants prosecutors in the case to recuse themselves. He claims that jail recordings, taken by another inmate, have been used to depict S.K. in a negative light – as the prosecutors claim that he was bragging about the killings. The district attorney's office has agreed to drop their push to bring the recordings to light in court.

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