LAKEPORT, Calif. – A jury must now decide the fate of a man accused of the September 2011 fatal shooting of an Upper Lake woman during an attempted robbery.
Deputy District Attorney John DeChaine and defense attorney David Markham spent the morning offering closing arguments in Judge Stephen Hedstrom's court in the lengthy trial of Daniel Loyd.
Loyd, 53, of Nice, has admitted to fatally shooting Cindy Yvette Quiett during an early morning robbery attempt on Sept. 13, 2011, claiming during testimony he gave on the stand during his defense last week that it was an accident.
The incident occurred in Lucerne, where the 48-year-old Quiett was with her boyfriend, Patrick “Joey” Ryden, to whom Loyd said he had fronted about $1,200 worth of methamphetamine to sell.
When Ryden didn't pay him back, the prosecution said Loyd set up a $40 drug deal, borrowed a van and a .357 magnum pistol, drove to Lucerne and just after 3:30 a.m. that day confronted Ryden, sticking the loaded gun in his face and demanding drugs and money.
When the two men struggled, the gun swung toward Quiett and fired, striking her in the stomach. She died a short time later.
Both sides have agreed that Loyd didn't intentionally shoot Quiett.
“Based on the evidence, it was accidental. He didn't intend to kill her,” or anyone else for that matter, DeChaine said during his closing arguments.
However, the key place of departure between prosecution and defense is what penalty Loyd should face.
DeChaine argued to the jury that the fact that Quiett's death was an accident didn't change the fact that it was a crime – specifically, murder – since it happened during the commission of an attempted robbery.
He explained the legal standards to the jury in order to show that a person can be guilty of felony murder even if the act was unintentional, accidental or negligent. The person who dies, he said, doesn't have to be the intended victim.
When Loyd pulled up and confronted Ryden that morning, he said, “Give me your s***, Joey. Give me your s***,” according to DeChaine.
After the struggle and Quiett's shooting, Loyd jumped back in the van with his girlfriend, Angel Spring, and another woman who DeChaine argued did not know what Loyd was planning.
Loyd had told the women he was going to buy drugs. After the shooting, Loyd let the second woman – a friend of Quiett's – out of the van at her request.
DeChaine said Loyd told sheriff's Det. John Drewrey that Ryden knew he was coming over that morning because Loyd had called to set up the drug buy, a fact Drewrey was able to independently confirm.
Quiett died, DeChaine argued, because Loyd didn't want to pay $40 for a bag of methamphetamine. “Cindy is the one that paid the price.”
In brief closing remarks that lasted only about 20 minutes, Markham went over the jury's duties and how jurors must follow the law in making their decision.
Loyd, Markham said, “committed a lot of crimes that night” – robbery, assault with a firearm, being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.
“I'm telling you, he committed these crimes. He committed the special allegations that went along with them,” said Markham.
“The only issue in this case,” Markham said, “is whether or not he committed murder.”
Markham said the jurors were not going to be happy with what Loyd did, or the fact that a convicted felon high on methamphetamine was running around the community committing robberies.
Loyd had stated on the stand last week that at the time of the shooting, he had been up 10 days straight, using half a gram of meth a day.
However, Markham said Loyd's actions didn't rise to the level of murder, and based on his interpretation of the law, jurors needed to return a not guilty verdict on the murder charge.
In his response to Markham's arguments, DeChaine told the jury, “Don't buy what the defendant's selling.”
He said it was entirely reasonable to conclude that, when putting a gun in someone's face, it could go off and kill someone.
Loyd, DeChaine said, also was trying to keep witnesses from coming to court. “That's consciousness of guilt.”
During his time on the stand last week, Loyd had been cross-examined by DeChaine extensively about an April 21 letter he admitted to writing to a female friend who has been visiting him in jail.
In that letter, Loyd told the woman to tell a number of witnesses in the case about the felony murder rule, and to explain to them if they showed up in court that he was going to go to prison for life.
“His last avenue was his attempt to suppress the evidence,” DeChaine said.
DeChaine told Lake County News after the morning session that Loyd's letter didn't succeed in dissuading any of the witnesses from coming to court.
He told the jury, “The evidence is overwhelming against this man,” and he urged them not to fall for a “smokescreen” the defense was offering regarding the murder charge.
“The overwhelming evidence in this case is that Danny Loyd did commit that murder,” DeChaine concluded.
Hedstrom ordered the jury to reconvene Thursday afternoon for jury instructions in order to hand the case over to them to begin deliberations.
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