LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 09: County Supervisor George Gascon, D, speaks at a press conference on February 9, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. After years of legal wrangling, Gascon announced Thursday, February 9, 2012, that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has reached a plea deal with Hollywood producer Jack O’Donnell, who has been accused of killing his wife, actress Jacqueline Avant. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images) Photo: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
If a 45-year-old man who admitted to stabbing a Hollywood producer to death and then a second time months later, all while “exploring the existence of an extraterrestrial race”, is sentenced to death, he will be the first person in California to face execution since 2006.
But district attorney George Gascon of Los Angeles County has accused the man he says killed production company CEO Jacqueline Avant in 2010 and a second time during her alleged visit to the county library in August of that year of having undermined the justice system.
In the December hearing in which “engaged in a soliloquy and spoke prophetically,” about the afterlife of the “New World Order” and how “the entire future of mankind is at stake” he had no right to be in the courtroom, Gascon told Judge Arthur Cooperman.
“He left us with no other choice,” Gascon said.
The county sheriff’s office says it will continue pursuing the death penalty for Irishman David Ralston, who has been held without bail since his arrest in November 2015.
Ralston admitted taking a kitchen knife and a screwdriver from the couple’s home after Avant shot and killed herself. He is charged with murder and a special circumstance that could qualify him for the death penalty.
Gascon said the murder rate in the nation’s second-largest county had been declining since 2010 and “it would be impossible to put a positive spin on (a death sentence for Ralston).”
Instead he said it would demonstrate the maximum lengths to which authorities will go in their pursuit of justice.
“The DA will not relent to these acts of brazen cowardice,” Gascon said.
The last man to be executed in the state was Albert Wesley Williams in 2006. The last person to be sentenced to death in California was Terry Anthony Ramos in 2009.
Ralston is due to be sentenced on Thursday.
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