Bell faces up to 21 years in prison
Michael Ward Bell, a local auto mechanic who shot and killed a transient last July, was found guilty Tuesday of voluntary manslaughter.
Jurors threw out the prosecution’s first-degree murder charge but said they didn’t believe Bell’s story that he was acting in self defense.
“The fact that he had the gun showed he had some intent,” said jury foreman Brad Evans, a 53-year-old marketing director who lives in Manhattan Beach. “But (the prosecution) didn’t give us enough as far as proving malice.”
“The fact that he had the gun showed he had some intent.” — — BRAD EVANS Jury foreman
In order to be convicted of first or second degree murder, the law demands a defendant act with malice.
Bell, 55, sat motionless in the courtroom dressed in a black suit and jail-issued black slippers as the jury delivered innocent verdicts to first and second degree murder.
Bell faces a maximum sentence of 21 years in prison.
But his public defender, John Raphling, said he will ask the court for probation at Bell’s sentencing hearing, which is scheduled for July 18.
“They were wrong,” Raphling said of the jurors. “Mr. Bell acted in self defense. The man was not guilty. The man was innocent.”
On July 1, Bell shot Andre Watson, a homeless man with a history of mental illness. Bell said he was acting in self defense after being attacked by Watson, who died about 90 minutes later from a loss of blood.
Raphling filed for a mistrial early Tuesday, claiming the jury was tainted because one of the jurors mistakenly received an unedited transcript of Bell’s interrogation by police on the night of the shooting and discussed it with other jurors.
In the unedited version, Bell asked police repeatedly for an attorney, an act that may have made him appear guilty to some jurors, Raphling said.
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen, who heard the case at the Airport Courthouse by LAX, denied the motion for a mistrial. He acknowledged the juror received the document in error but ruled that it would not affect the jury’s ultimate decision.
If the motion for a mistrial had been granted, new jurors would have been selected and the entire case would have presented again.
Fifteen minutes after the motion was denied, the jury reached a verdict.
The jury of eight women and four men reached their unanimous decision after three days of deliberations and seven days of testimony. Jurors said Tuesday the fact that Bell shot Watson six times didn’t affect their decision.
Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Mark Burnley had maintained that Bell shot Watson methodically and deliberately while he lay curled up in a fetal position on the sidewalk about 100 feet from BT Automotive, the Pico Boulevard auto repair shop that Bell managed.
But Bell said he shot Watson out of self defense, after a series of heated arguments with the heavily intoxicated homeless man that began after Watson made a gesture indicating he wanted to slice Bell’s throat.
Bell said Watson — who threatened to kill him, his family and his dog — tried to enter his shop with a knife in his hand. When he went to lock the door but heard a noise in the garage, Bell said he panicked and grabbed a.357 Magnum from his file cabinet.
He said he ran into the street and walked down the sidewalk towards a trash bag he believed to be Bell’s belongings. When he leaned down to inspect the bag, Watson said, “F--k, a f--king gun,” and attacked Bell, he said.
More than three dozen witnesses took the stand in the course of the trial, describing Watson as a highly intelligent but psychologically impaired man who was prone to fits of rage and violence.
Just before the shooting, which took place in the 2600 block of Pico Boulevard, Watson was released from jail after being sentenced to 15 days for attacking two teenage girls with a box cutter on Santa Monica Beach.
Bell will remain in custody without bail. For nearly 12 months he has been held at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in downtown L.A. on $2,000,000 bail.
No friends or family were present for the ruling, though Bell’s aunt, Bea Bell, and three of Bell’s friends did attend most of the trial.
Bea Bell, a Santa Monica native, said after the ruling that she didn’t know what verdict to expect and was relieved it wasn’t worse. She said Bell was innocent and only shot at Watson to protect himself.
“It will haunt Mike the rest of his life,” she said of the shooting. “If anyone deserved a break, Mike did. He’s worked hard all his life. He’s the kind of guy that would stop to help if he saw you broken down on the side of the road. Everyone that knows him speaks highly of Mike.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 25, 2003. Read the original PDF.