Opinion ID: 844262
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Murder of Ricky McDonald

Text: Nicole Halstead, defendant's girlfriend, [8] was a principal prosecution witness. Before relating the facts surrounding the Ricky McDonald murder, Halstead testified about a violent encounter that defendant and Kazi Cooksey had with Darrell Milton an hour earlier. Neither defendant nor Cooksey was charged with crimes against Milton. The evidence relating to this assault was, nonetheless, admitted for the limited purpose of determining if it tends to show the intent and/or mental state that was a necessary element of the McDonald murder. According to Halstead, around midnight on May 17, 1996, she, defendant, and Cooksey went to a liquor store where they encountered Darrell Milton. Milton was drunk and verbally harassing everyone going in or out of the store. As they left the store, two men rushed Milton and hit him in the face. Defendant and Cooksey joined in the attack. Defendant kicked Milton real hard over and over. Cooksey knelt over Milton and punched him. Milton was hospitalized for three days. He and his companion Kevin Collins both testified the attack was unprovoked. Neither man could identify defendant or Cooksey. [9] Defendant, Cooksey, and Halstead then drove four or five miles back to an apartment complex where Cesar Harris lived. Before going to the liquor store, the three had been socializing with Harris and Carolyn Lanham [10] at a picnic table in front of Harris's apartment. Thirty to 45 minutes after they returned, Harris's neighbor, Ricky McDonald, drove up and crashed his truck into a wall. Drunk and belligerent, McDonald yelled: Why in the hell you over here making all this fucking noise . . . by my house. Cooksey confronted McDonald, asking, What, you got a problem? The men argued and Cooksey punched McDonald in the jaw. McDonald said it did not hurt and that Cooksey had better not do it again. Cooksey did it again. As McDonald staggered from the blow, defendant punched him and McDonald fell into some bushes. Defendant was six foot four, well over 200 pounds, while Cooksey was disabled on his left side. Defendant then kicked McDonald several times in the chest and head, but stopped at Harris's request. As McDonald lay in the bushes, breathing but unconscious, the others resumed drinking. After 20 minutes, Cooksey returned to McDonald's prone body and started punching him again, ultimately hitting McDonald in the head with a liquor bottle. He repeatedly hit McDonald so hard that Harris was surprised the bottle did not break. Harris again intervened. While Cooksey stopped, defendant then stomped on McDonald's head several times. Stripping him, defendant slapped McDonald's buttocks. He also took McDonald's baseball cap and shoes. Harris gave Lanham McDonald's sack of takeout food. At defendant's direction the others got into Halstead's car, but defendant lingered at the scene for almost 10 minutes. Finally, he jumped in the car real fast. Halstead asked him what he had been doing that had taken so long. Defendant replied that McDonald was reviving, but that he took care of that. As they drove away defendant and Cooksey were laughing about defendant's getting his stripes. They used the slang term M 1, which Halstead understood to mean Murder One. Dr. Brian Blackbourne, the medical examiner of San Diego County, assisted at McDonald's autopsy. He testified that McDonald died from multiple injuries to his head and neck.
The defense theory was that McDonald died because Cooksey hit him on the head with the bottle, not because of any injuries defendant inflicted. According to Dr. John Eisele, the defense forensic pathologist, McDonald did not die as a result of injuries to his neck, but rather from blood loss and blunt force trauma to his head. Four defense witnesses testified to Cooksey's violent character. According to one of them, Cooksey had considerable strength in his good hand. Finally, a former cellmate testified that Halstead told her she had kicked an unidentified man who was being beaten.