Opinion ID: 3179278
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Case in Aggravation

Text: The prosecutor presented evidence regarding Masters‘s extensive juvenile and adult criminal record. The prosecutor also presented evidence of Masters‘s history of unadjudicated criminal activity, which included two murders. In 1974, when Masters was 12 years old, he took some change from another boy‘s pocket, but ultimately gave the money back after the boy pleaded with Masters not to take it. Masters later told police that he had merely borrowed a dime from the boy but returned it when the boy said he wanted it back. 10 In 1975, when Masters was 13 years old, he got into a fight and cut another boy with a knife. A short time later, Masters came to the boy‘s house armed with a handgun and fired it at the house, yelling, ―I‘m going to kill you.‖ Masters was arrested and admitted to the police that he had gone to the house with a makeshift gun and had pulled the trigger but claimed it did not fire. In 1976, when Masters was 14 years old, he got into a confrontation with a fellow student at school and screamed that he was going to kill the boy. Masters found a hacksaw and threatened to kill the other student. Also around that time, Masters was taken to the principal‘s office for a disciplinary problem and he tried to climb out the window. When the assistant principal intervened, Masters picked up a large metal hole punch and threatened to kill him with it. Around a week later, Masters and another boy stopped a boy riding his bike and demanded that he give them his watch, which the cyclist did. Masters was later arrested and told the police that he merely asked to see the watch and that after he looked at it, he gave it to the other boy, who ran away with it. By 1978, when Masters was 16 years old, he had been adjudicated a ward of the California Youth Authority. He and two other wards forced a fourth ward to perform a sex act on one of them. Masters hit the victim, pinned him to the floor, and warned him not to tell the authorities. The next day, Masters and one of the other wards again beat the victim and forced him to orally copulate the other ward. The victim reported the incidents to a counselor. The victim testified at trial that these incidents did not happen. But he had told the prosecutor earlier that the report he gave was true and that he did not want to testify against Masters. Another former ward in the same facility testified that he saw the assaults. During his case in mitigation, Masters testified that he used to ―pick on‖ the victim, but that any sexual activity the victim had engaged in was consensual. 11 When Masters was 17 years old, he and another person robbed a gas station, threatening the owner with a rifle. Masters was arrested and prosecuted as an adult, pleaded guilty to robbery, and admitted he personally used a firearm. In 1980, after he turned 18, Masters committed a string of robberies in the Los Angeles area that continued until he was arrested a few months later. The jury heard testimony about several of these robberies. For example, during a two-week period, Masters robbed the same restaurant three times. He was armed with a handgun each time. During one of those robberies, Masters struck one of the victims with his gun. During another, he brandished his gun and said to one of his victims, ―I‘ll blow your motherfucking brains out.‖ After the police arrested Masters, he admitted committing several of the robberies. He told the officers he would ―get off anyway,‖ explaining that he would ―beat it‖ because he would ―just have a psychiatrist tell [the jury] how crazy‖ he was. Masters also professed to ―know how the system works,‖ asserting that he would not be charged with all the robberies and at most would serve ―only a couple of years.‖ He said he had hidden the guns used during the robberies and would not say where because he would need them when he got out. Masters was also implicated in two other robbery-related incidents that occurred during his robbery spree. In one incident, two police officers were dispatched to a robbery in progress at a gas station. After they arrived, one of the officers saw a flash from a gunshot and then heard another shot. The officers searched for the assailant but did not locate anyone. Masters later admitted to the police that he and another man had gone to the gas station to commit a robbery. When the police arrived, he hid behind a tree and shot at the officers. In the other incident, Bob Hamil was killed during a robbery in his liquor store. Masters initially told the police he did not commit this robbery, but claimed to have heard about the crime. When questioned by the police, however, some of 12 Masters‘s statements implied he had been a participant. For example, Masters stated, ―It looked like [Hamil] got a gun and was going to run after us and shoot at us from the back.‖ When asked why Masters used a partner for this robbery, he responded, ―Because the dude really knows the freeways.‖ When asked if he was ―loaded‖ during the robbery, Masters initially replied, ―No, I wasn‘t loaded,‖ but then denied any involvement. Masters also was familiar with details of the crime, including the fact that Hamil was shot in the chest, that Hamil had a .38-caliber handgun, and that the robbers drove away in a stolen Camaro. In 1981, when Masters was 19 and incarcerated in county jail on the robbery charges, a deputy found in his cell a double-edge razor blade attached to a toothbrush and a single-edge razor blade melted into some tubing. As the deputy led Masters away from the cell, he told another inmate that he ―just got busted with a shank.‖ Around that time, Masters had a physical altercation with some deputies. Several deputies were attempting to subdue an inmate who had been fighting when Masters began screaming and attempting to ―rile‖ other inmates. When the deputies tried to remove Masters from his cell, he pushed one of them in the chest. Masters struggled with the five deputies attempting to control him until they were able to handcuff him. Masters eventually was convicted of 12 counts of robbery, and he was found to have personally used a firearm in seven of them. He received a 20-year sentence. While Masters was imprisoned at San Quentin in 1984 for his robbery convictions, inmate David Jackson was killed on the exercise yard. A guard saw Jackson walk toward Masters and a group of other inmates. The guard looked away, and when he looked back, he saw Jackson staggering away from the group 13 with blood on his shirt and a prisoner-made knife sticking out of his neck. Jackson later died at the hospital. Masters was transferred to the adjustment center in the prison soon after Jackson‘s death. Masters told Johnnie Hoze, the BGF security chief in the center, that he had been transferred there for killing Jackson. Masters said that he had stabbed Jackson in the neck and left the weapon there. Several times over the next year, Masters told several BGF members that he had killed Jackson. Masters said that Jackson was murdered because he had been buying drugs from a Caucasian instead of BGF members. Masters also said that the ―adrenalin rush‖ that he experienced while stabbing Jackson was better than having sex. A few months after Jackson‘s death, a correctional officer searching Masters‘s cell found a two-inch-long prisoner-made weapon. A few months after that, a correctional officer was escorting an inmate when a nearly six-foot-long spear flew out of Masters‘s cell. The spear, made of a rolled-up newspaper and a sharpened piece of metal, narrowly missed hitting the inmate in the neck. Masters attempted to escape during the course of his trial. A deputy sheriff was in the process of removing Masters‘s restraints in a holding cell when an altercation occurred between Lawrence Woodard and other deputies. Masters‘s hands and feet had been freed from his waist chain, and he ran for the door. The deputy tackled Masters, but the officer hit his head on a bench as they were falling. Masters got up and again ran for the door. The deputy was able to grab Masters‘s waist chain. As the deputy tried to grab Masters‘s arms, Masters began swinging his elbows, hitting the deputy once in the neck. The deputy pinned Masters against a wall until other deputies arrived and were able to subdue him. 14