A man who allegedly killed another man during a 2012 street brawl in Lancaster was charged Thursday with murder.
Cedric Burton, 30, was arrested shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday while entering the Antelope Valley Courthouse on an unrelated case, sheriff’s Lt. Joe Mendoza said.
Burton was charged Thursday with murder, and the charge includes special circumstance allegations of lying in wait and murder to further the activities of a criminal street gang. The allegations open Burton to a possible death sentence, but prosecutors will decide later whether to seek capital punishment.
He is scheduled to be arraigned June 9 in Lancaster.
On Nov. 29, 2012, Brandy Houston, 21, was fatally shot during a brawl in the 43000 block of Gadsden Avenue, according to prosecutors and the sheriff’s department.
According to the sheriff’s department, the fight began as an argument between Houston and his live-in girlfriend, who called her sister for a ride.
Her sister sent three Lancaster men — Terrell Henderson, Randy Sullivan and Joshua Lockett — to pick her up, and they got into an argument with Houston and his family members. The three men left, but promised to return, sheriff’s officials said.
Later, they returned with two other men — one of whom allegedly was Burton — and a melee erupted.
According to prosecutors, Burton walked through the crowd during the brawl and shot Houston 12 times.
Henderson, Sullivan and Lockett were later arrested, tried and convicted of second-degree murder. All three were sentenced in 2014 to potential life prison terms.
In a November 2015, a state appeals court panel rejected the defense’s claim that there was insufficient evidence to support their convictions.
The three-justice appellate court panel found that the evidence established the three dropped off the victim’s girlfriend and her baby and then “drove away with the singular purpose of going back to fight Houston and his family.”
“Here, there was evidence defendants sought out a confrontation with Houston’s group. They picked up two additional men as backup, including the shooter,” the justices found in a 20-page ruling.
The California Supreme Court refused in February to review the case against the three.
— City News Service