Opinion ID: 2567623
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Steven McDonald

Text: The declaration of Steven Wayne McDonald, dated December 15, 2003, was jointly submitted to the referee. In 1980 or 1981, McDonald was incarcerated in the Men's Central Jail in Los Angeles. While housed in the snitch unit there, McDonald encountered Saucedo (known to him as Turtle), who was housed there also. At some point, Saucedo confessed to McDonald that he had stabbed and killed a drug dealer over a deal that went bad. Saucedo said he stabbed the man many times in the upper body and demonstrated how the man's upper body and arms shook as he was stabbed. Saucedo said he continued to stab the man even after the man's whole body was shaking violently. Subsequently, Saucedo told McDonald that the latter should lie for him and say that another inmate (whose name Mc-Donald could not recall) had actually killed the drug dealer. Saucedo threatened to kill McDonald or have other Mexican inmates kill him if McDonald did not help him. Saucedo also said that if McDonald did not cooperate, the Mexican Mafia would kill McDonald's family. McDonald felt he had no choice but to cooperate. For a week, Saucedo coached McDonald on how to answer the detectives' questions about how the stabbing went down. Saucedo said the story would be more credible coming from a [W]hite person with a clean criminal history instead of someone who was a Mexican. Pursuant to Saucedo's instructions, McDonald then contacted a Deputy Sweeny, a guard in the snitch unit who set up a meeting with three detectives whose names McDonald could not remember. During that first meeting, McDonald told the detectives the lies Saucedo had instructed him to tell (viz., about another unnamed inmate confessing to the murder of the drug dealer). At a second meeting, where Saucedo was present, Saucedo told the detectives that the same inmate had confessed to him about the murder of the drug dealer. At a third and final meeting, at which only two of the detectives were present, McDonald was told if I cooperated they would let me go. Thereafter, McDonald was moved, for my protection, to the Lynwood substation, and two months later he was released. Before being released, McDonald gave detectives his contact information, including the address at which he lived for a year after his release, but no one contacted him. If in 1980 or 1981 a defense investigator had contacted him and given him assurances of protection, McDonald would have told the investigator what Saucedo had said to him.