A state appeals court Tuesday upheld a man’s conviction for opening fire on two Whittier police officers, killing one and wounding the other, along with killing a man in East Los Angeles earlier the same morning.
But the three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered a new sentencing hearing for Michael Christopher Mejia after reversing two gang enhancements against the defendant, who is now 32.
“We conclude defendant was prejudiced by the court’s failure to instruct the jury on the new elements of `pattern of criminal gang activity’ necessary to establish the existence of a criminal street gang,” the panel found in its 30-page ruling, which noted that prosecutors can opt to retry the gang enhancements on the charges involving the two officers along with aggravating factors that carried a longer sentence in connection with his conviction on a carjacking charge.
The ruling is not expected to substantively affect Mejia’s sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Mejia was convicted in September 2021 of two counts of first-degree murder for the Feb. 20, 2017, killings of Keith Boyer, a 53-year-old Whittier police officer who was the first officer in the city killed in the line of duty in 37 years, and 47-year-old Roy Torres a few hours earlier.
He was also convicted of an attempted murder charge involving Officer Patrick Hazell, who was shot in the abdomen, along with one count each of carjacking and possession of a firearm by a felon.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder of a peace officer in the performance of his duties, murder for the purpose of avoiding arrest and multiple murders, along with gang and gun allegations.
“To be sure, defendant’s overall crime spree was undoubtedly callous and vicious. Defendant properly received multiple consecutive life terms for those crimes — including two terms of life without the possibility of parole,” Associate Justice Helen Zukin wrote on behalf of the panel, which rejected the defense’s claim that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction on the carjacking charge.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Garrett Dameron told jurors that the two police officers were responding to a three-vehicle traffic collision near Colima Road and Mar Vista Street in which Mejia had been involved, and that the two had no idea that those would be “the last moments” of Boyer’s life.
Dameron called the evidence “so strong,” telling jurors there was “clear intent to kill the victims in this case” and an “abundance of evidence” that Mejia premeditated the shootings. The prosecutor told jurors that Mejia committed the crimes “to get attention” and wanted his face shown on the evening newscasts.
Mejia’s attorney urged the panel to find his client guilty of the lesser crime of second-degree murder. Defense lawyer Paul Cohen argued there is “no indication that he (Mejia) planned these crimes ahead of time.”
Cohen told jurors there shouldn’t be any doubt that Mejia was using drugs in the days leading up to the crimes, saying that voluntary intoxication is “key to this case.”
“It was all about drugs and getting high,” Mejia’s attorney said.
The defense attorney said his client “wasn’t a career criminal” and disputed whether his client was even an active gang member at the time.
In his rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Geoff Lewin said the “most damaging evidence” came from the defendant himself, whom he said “admits to everything essentially.” Lewin said there was no evidence of a methamphetamine-induced psychosis in which Mejia didn’t know what he was doing at the time of the crimes.
Just before imposing the sentence on Mejia in December 2021, Superior Court Judge Roger Ito said, “He executed Officer Boyer and attempted to execute Officer Hazell.”
The judge noted that the two officers had pulled up to render aid following a traffic collision in which Mejia was involved shortly after killing Torres in front of two other people, and that Mejia has not “shown remorse” for his crimes.
“He is quite proud of it,” the judge said of the defendant, who admitted just before sentencing that he had a 2010 conviction for robbery.
Over the objection of the two prosecutors in the trial, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office dropped its bid to seek the death penalty against Mejia. The reversal came just over two months after District Attorney George Gascón was sworn into office.
Gascón — who said he had a “mandate from the public” — has vowed that the office will no longer pursue the death penalty.
Mejia told authorities after his arrest that Torres was his cousin, but Torres’ relatives have insisted that he was not related to Mejia.
Jurors heard an audio recording of Mejia telling investigators when asked if he had anything to say to the Whittier Police Department that they should “train your guys better” and that he didn’t feel sorry.
During the 48-minute interview in a hospital jail ward eight days after the killings, Mejia initially told Los Angeles County sheriff’s Detectives Dean Camarillo and Omar Miranda about the killings, “I don’t remember doing none of that.”
But he later told the detectives, “I guess you guys have everything down — smoked my cousin, smoked the cop. … I mean, what else do you guys want? I shot another cop … He shot me,” Mejia said during that interview.
In the interview first played in court at a June 2017 hearing in which he was ordered to stand trial, Mejia admitted being a gang member and drug user and told the detectives, “I did it, I mean, I did it … both of ’em, all three of them had it coming,” adding that the “officer got too aggressive with me.”
When asked by homicide investigators what happened with Torres, the defendant said the victim — whom he described as a “cool cousin” from his grandfather’s side — should have “kept his nose clean” and that he had “warned him.”