Johnson v. Super. Ct.

INTRODUCTION

In 1997, Cleamon Demone Johnson was convicted of the first-degree murders of Peyton Beroit and Donald Ray Loggins, with multiple-murder special-circumstance findings as to both. The jury returned a verdict of death, which the trial court imposed. In 2011, the California Supreme Court reversed Johnson’s convictions and remanded for retrial. Before the second trial, the People investigated other murder and attempted murder cases from the early 1990s in which Johnson had been a suspect. Ultimately, they added four new charges to the case pending against him—for the capital murders of Albert Sutton, Georgia Denise (“Nece”) Jones, and Tyrone Mosley, and the attempted murder of Kim Coleman—all of which occurred in the early 1990s, and for two of which the People had previously tried and failed to convict Johnson. Where Johnson had been convicted of two capital-murder charges before his successful appeal, he now faces five capital-murder charges and an attempted murder charge—plus newly added gang enhancements—in the same case. Johnson challenged the filing of the new charges in a motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. Although the trial court agreed that Johnson…