The trial of a man accused of a deadly shooting rampage at Los Angeles International Airport in 2013 that killed a TSA officer is tentatively scheduled for next year.
Defense lawyers for defendant Paul Ciancia, the 24-year-old man who was charged with 11 federal counts in connection with the November 2013 attack, told a federal judge Monday that they will try to meet the projected trial date of Feb. 23, 2016.
US District Judge Philip Gutierrez said he thought the case could be tried by this September, but he is willing to push it back to early next year. However, he said “something tremendous” would have to occur to delay it even further.
It will also take significantly longer to prepare for trial because the prosecution will seek the death penalty if Ciancia is convicted. Death penalty cases are relatively rare and often more complex because lawyers have to prepare for guilt and penalty phases, which often involves intensive digging for background information from people who knew the defendant.
“There’s often a serious psychiatric component to these cases,” said attorney Marilyn Bednarski, a former federal defender who represented Buford Furrow, the white supremacist who killed a Filipino postal worker and wounded five people in a 1999 shooting at a Los Angeles Jewish community center. “It’s just not normal behavior. Often people are terribly mentally ill and those things take a long time to investigate.”
Authorities allege the gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle in the airport’s busy Terminal 3, killing TSA Officer Gerardo I. Hernandez and wounding three others. Ciancia pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Prosecutors led by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in court papers that they would seek execution because Ciancia intentionally targeted federal employees, and terrorized passengers and airport employees in the attack. In court documents filed last month, prosecutors cited several factors that led to their decision, alleging Ciacia’s actions were intentional and occurred “after substantial planning and premeditation.”
“By committing his crimes on a weekday morning in a crowded terminal at one of the busiest airports in the world…Ciancia terrorized numerous airline passengers and airport employees,” they wrote, also noting the effect Hernandez’s death had on his family and colleagues.
Investigators found a note signed by Ciancia saying he wanted to kill TSA agents and “instill fear in their traitorous minds.” They also said they have a mountain of evidence, at least 10,000 pieces or 150 DVDs full of material. Witnesses to the shooting also said the gunman had asked them whether they worked for the TSA before moving on without shooting.
After the rampage, Ciancia was shot in the head and leg during a gun battle with airport police. He spent two weeks recovering at a hospital before he was transferred to a federal detention center in downtown Los Angeles, where he remains in custody.
Los Angeles airport police Chief Pat Gannon said Friday, Jan. 2 that he felt the prosecution’s decision to seek the death penalty was “appropriate, given the facts of the shooting.
Since its reinstatement in 1988, the death penalty has been sought hundreds of times by US prosecutors, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. During that time, there were 79 death sentences, and three have been executed.
“What a tragedy, all around,” Gannon said. “Especially for Gerardo Hernandez’s family and those wounded.”
Hernandez, 39, was the first TSA employee killed in the line of duty since the agency was formed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
(With reports from NBC Los Angeles and Los Angeles Times)
(www.asianjournal.com)
(Las Vegas January 8-14, 2015 Sec. A pg.4)
