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Thursday, May 8, 2014

Criminal Justice Quote: A Mass Murderer Pleads Guilty

     A man accused of committing the worst mass killing in the history of Orange County, California pleaded guilty to eight counts of murder Friday, May 2, 2014….Forty-four-year-old Scott Dekraai, from Huntington Beach, was charged in the fatal shooting of eight people--including his ex-wife Michelle Fournier--at Salon Meritage in Seal Beach in 2011….

     Dekaai had been in a custody dispute with Fournier over the couple's then 8-year-old son before he strapped on a bulletproof vest, took three handguns and shot up the salon where she worked as a hairdresser. When police apprehended Dekraai, he allegedly told an officer, "I know what I did."

     During an earlier hearing on Monday, April 28, 2014, the former tugboat operator's defense lawyer told an Orange County court that his client intended to plead guilty to spare victims' families a painful trial…."That is a selfish move," Bethany Webb, whose sister Laura was one of the shooting victims…."I don't think there's any kindness in pleading guilty."...

     The plea clears the way for the defense attorney to focus on an evidence hearing. Dekaai's defense team claim there was widespread governmental misconduct in the way investigators collected evidence with the compliance of jail house informants. With the guilty plea, a jury will decide at a later date whether to sentence the killer to death or life in prison. Dekraai's trial was supposed to start June 9, 2014. [With the guilty plea, I don't see the relevance of how the police gathered evidence in the case. This man has confessed to murdering eight innocent victims. Guilt or innocence and due process should no longer be issues. The question is, does he deserve to be executed? Of course he does, but this mass murder took place in California, so that is unlikely.]

"California Salon Shooter Pleads Guilty to Killing 8 in 2011," CBS Los Angeles, May 2, 2014 

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