One bullet convicts two men

Separate juries find each gunman guilty of firing fatal shot

By Minerva Canto

The Associated Press

June 13, 1997

TORRANCE, Calif. — One bullet killed Willie Yen in a drug deal gone bad. Yet a prosecutor all but convinced separate juries that two men pulled the same trigger.

The case has raised questions about playing to win in the courtroom at the expense of truth.

One day, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Todd Rubenstein told a jury that John Patrick Winkelman was the triggerman.

The next day, Rubenstein told another jury the evidence is ''100 percent consistent with Stephen Davis firing that fatal round.''

Both men were convicted of first-degree murder in the 1995 slaying.

Superior Court Judge Francis Hourigan denied Winkelman a new trial last week and sent him to prison for life without parole. The judge will consider Davis' request for a new trial at a hearing today. Davis is still awaiting sentencing.

''A prosecutor should not just play to win. They should always be engaged in a search for the truth,'' said Laurie Levenson, associate dean of Loyola Law School and a former federal prosecutor. ''And if you're searching for the truth, it's very hard to argue that two people did the shooting.''

Rubenstein said he believes he did nothing legally or ethically wrong.

''I would never try to twist something to my advantage at the detriment of someone else,'' he said. ''The way I've been perceived and the way I've been portrayed is that I just want to put someone in jail irrespective of the evidence. ... Both men are so overwhelmingly guilty.''

Rubenstein conceded that he doesn't know who fired the fatal shot. He said he emphasized to both juries that the killing was the result of a robbery. He cited a California law allowing prosecutors to convict people of first-degree murder even if they weren't the ones to pull the trigger but were involved in a robbery that resulted in a death.

''It's like a football team: Only one person carries the ball over the line, but the whole team gets credit for the score,'' Rubenstein said. ''That's what you always hear in these cases — 'I didn't expect to kill anyone. All I wanted was to steal.'''

Prosecutors allege Davis and Winkelman wanted to rob Yen for cash. In the process, Yen was shot once in his car. A witness, Adam Asbury, said he was ''100 percent certain'' that Winkelman, then 19, was the shooter.

A day after the shooting, police arrested Winkelman and Davis, who was also 19 at the time. Davis told investigators that Winkelman entered Yen's car and fired the fatal shot.

Because one defendant had incriminated another, the judge decided to use two juries — one to hear evidence against Davis, the other to hear the case against Winkelman.

Robert Pugsley, a law professor from Southwestern University in Los Angeles who has followed the case closely, believes Rubenstein had no alternative other than to blame both men for the fatal shot, given the unusual circumstances of the case.

''He chose to make the stronger argument against both; ... so, sure, it creates a gray area,'' Puglsey said. ''I think given the facts of the case ... Mr. Rubenstein's choices were not enviable.'' But he added: ''I don't think it will ever sit well with the public reading about it.''