An attorney for a man convicted of ordering the 1988 murders of auto racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife urged a state appeals court panel Tuesday to overturn his conviction, arguing that there was insufficient evidence against him.
“The evidence against Mr. (Michael) Goodwin is so weak,” his appellate attorney, Gail Harper, told the three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal hearing Goodwin’s appeal.
Deputy Attorney General Louis Karlin countered that “the motive is shown very strongly by the nature of the threats” against Thompson by Goodwin.
“Only one person has that motive,” the deputy attorney general said.
Thompson, 59, and his wife, Trudy, were gunned down around 6 a.m. March 16, 1988, in the driveway of their home in the gated San Gabriel foothills community of Bradbury as they headed to work at the Anaheim Stadium offices of Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group.
The killers, described by witnesses as a pair of black men in their 20s, escaped on 10-speed bicycles and were never caught.
Goodwin was convicted in January 2007 of two counts of first-degree murder, along with the special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and multiple murders. He was sentenced in March 2007 to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors alleged that Goodwin ordered the killings after a business dispute stemming from the 1984 merger of their companies was resolved in Thompson’s favor. The judgment against Goodwin amounted to nearly $750,000.
Goodwin, who was long considered a prime suspect in the murders, was arrested in 2001 in Orange County.
The case against Goodwin was originally brought by prosecutors in Santa Ana, who had argued that the murders were planned in Orange County, where Goodwin lived. However, an appellate court panel found that Orange County lacked jurisdiction to prosecute, and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office filed its case against Goodwin in June 2004.
The deputy attorney general told the appellate court justices that there was no evidence that the crime was done for any reason other than “to assassinate these two people.”
He said there was no evidence of a forced entry into the couple’s home, noting that cash was left at the scene of the murders.
Goodwin’s appellate attorney told the justices, “Saying only one person had (a) motive is flat-out not true.”
She said there was no direct evidence of any relationship between Goodwin and the perpetrators, saying that authorities ignored evidence that potentially implicated others in the killings and that Goodwin was “not the only person in the world who knew where Thompson and his wife lived.”
Harper acknowledged that her client was an “angry man” who was “known for his loudness and over-the-top statements,” but said that “being a jerk isn’t a crime.”
“You have to overcome the distaste for Mr. Goodwin, who is thoroughly distasteful,” she told the panel.
Among those on hand for the appellate court hearing were former prosecutors Patrick Dixon and Alan Jackson, who handled the case against Goodwin, and Thompson’s sister, Collene Campbell, who has long attended hearings in Goodwin’s case.
Campbell, a former San Juan Capistrano mayor and longtime advocate for crime victims, said outside court that it had been 9,724 days since her brother and his wife were killed. She said there has “never been a morning or a night that I’m not thinking about it.”
At his sentencing, Goodwin denied that he was responsible for the killings.
“Mickey and Trudy, it was a tragedy that they were killed,” said the then-62-year-old defendant, who turned to speak to the victims’ family and friends who packed the courtroom. “The world lost somebody who was a great inventor. … I can’t apologize because I’m not guilty of the crime.”
Goodwin said he believed that one day others would find out that he is “not guilty” and “hopefully you’ll also find the true killers.”
The defendant added that he hoped the appeals process will bring justice, and vowed that he would fight until the day he dies to prove that he was not responsible for the killings.
“I just will pray for the right thing to happen in the long run,” he said.
Pasadena Superior Court Judge Teri Schwartz, who presided over Goodwin’s trial, said at his sentencing that “there appears to be to be ample reason why this case took so long to result in an arrest of Mr. Goodwin.”
The judge noted that no one suggested Goodwin was actually at the scene of the murders.
Thompson set four international speed records in 1959 and went on to set more than 100 international or national speed marks through 1962, according to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, which posthumously inducted him in 1990.