LAKEPORT, Calif. – A local man is looking at spending the rest of his life in prison after a jury convicted him of murder for the September 2011 shooting of an Upper Lake woman that he said was an accident.
The jury, which had begun deliberating late Thursday afternoon, handed down the conviction in the trial of 53-year-old Daniel Ray Loyd of Nice by late Friday morning.
Loyd was on trial for the shooting death of 48-year-old Cindy Yvette Quiett early on the morning of Sept. 13, 2011, in Lucerne.
Prosecutor John DeChaine said the jury returned guilty verdicts on all five felony counts in the case: first-degree felony murder, with a special circumstance that the murder occurred during the commission of an attempted robbery; attempted robbery; assault with a firearm; being a felon in possession of a firearm; and being a felon in possession of ammunition.
In addition, the jury also found true certain special allegations, including that Loyd personally used a firearm in the commission of the murder, and that he committed attempted robbery and assault with a firearm.
DeChaine said Loyd is facing a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Loyd's defense attorney, David Markham, told Lake County News that Loyd plans to file an appeal, but said he could make no other comment on the case at this time.
Judge Stephen Hedstrom, who has presided over the trial, must still decide on some special allegations relating to two prior prison terms that Loyd served as well as an out-of-state strike, DeChaine said. However, those matters are unlikely to have much – if any – impact on Loyd's ultimate sentence or the prison time he will serve.
DeChaine presented a case showing that Loyd drove to Lucerne that morning intending to rob Quiett's boyfriend, Patrick Ryden, after Ryden failed to pay him back for meth he had fronted him to sell.
Loyd, having borrowed a van and a .357 pistol from another man, confronted Ryden, sticking the loaded gun in his face and demanding, “Give me your s***.”
The two men struggled, Ryden pushed the gun away and into the direction of Quiett – standing between 12 and 20 feet away – who was struck in the stomach and mortally wounded when the gun went off. She died later that morning.
Jury selection on the trial began in mid-April, with testimony taking place for more than a month, averaging about two days a week, according to jury foreman Val McMurdie.
During that time, the prosecution had put on significant evidence before Markham presented his case over the course of one day on May 28, with Loyd on the stand for much of that time. Markham would not discuss the reasons for having Loyd testify on his own behalf.
While on the stand, Loyd – who admitted to being a drug dealer – had insisted that the shooting was an accident and that he felt remorse.
He said that at the time of the shooting he had been high on methamphetamine and had not slept in 10 days.
Loyd admitted in court to writing a letter in April to a female friend who regularly visited him at the jail, urging her to tell other witnesses in the case about the felony murder rule and not to come to court to testify against him, otherwise he was facing life in state prison.
Both the prosecution and defense had agreed in closing arguments last week that Loyd didn't intend to kill anyone, and that the shooting was an accident.
However, DeChaine had successfully argued that – accident or not – the shooting still rose to the level of felony murder.
McMurdie estimated the jury deliberated for a total of two and a half hours, beginning on Thursday afternoon and finishing up on Friday morning.
With experience in law – he's practiced in two states – McMurdie said one of the key issues jurors discussed during their short deliberations was probable cause, and whether it could have been foreseen that a struggle and, ultimately, the shooting of a person who wasn't the intended victim might have resulted.
“There were three jurors who wanted to explore that,” he said.
As for Loyd's testimony, “The jury itself as a group did not discuss it,” said McMurdie, adding that in some side conversations with other jurors they indicated that Loyd's statements were “stupid,” especially his justification for sending the letter trying to dissuade witnesses from appearing.
“I think that it was very damaging to the defendant,” McMurdie said of Loyd taking the stand.
Other than that, Loyd's testimony did not figure significantly because, McMurdie said, there was more than enough evidence for the jury to convict Loyd of the charges.
He said that the sheriff's office had, in its investigation, caught everything – except the smoke from the pistol used in the crime.
McMurdie said he found the case interesting from the standpoint that it involved a local criminal underworld made up of its own particular community – people who were longtime Lake County residents, career criminals, and drug dealers and users.
“What could go wrong?” he asked.
DeChaine said he was pleased that the jury didn't accept Loyd's explanations about the crime, and that the trial's outcome showed the justice system works.
“They recognized that he was responsible for Cindy Quiett's death, and hopefully that provides some solace for Cindy's family and friends,” DeChaine said.
In addition to his own murder trial, Loyd – who has been in custody since the September 2011 shooting – took the stand as an informant in another local murder case, that of 4-year-old Skyler Rapp, who was shot to death in June 2011 in Clearlake.
During the trial of Paul Braden, Loyd testified that Braden – who had been housed with him at the Lake County Jail – had confided to him about key points in the crime, including admitting to being the gunman in the shooting, which also wounded several other people. Braden would be convicted in that case and sentenced to more than 300 years in prison.
While Loyd's murder conviction automatically calls for a sentence of life without parole, the case will still be referred to the Lake County Probation Department, which DeChaine said will conduct its analysis and make a sentencing recommendation to the court.
A sentencing date in the case has not yet been set, DeChaine said.
Loyd has waived the time limits for sentencing, so he will return to court on June 30, at which time DeChaine said Loyd's sentencing date is expected to be set.
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