Before being sentenced, Frank Kalil Becerra lashed out at Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Ratinoff for not allowing him to give complete answers during his testimony.
"She only allowed me to give 'yes' and 'no' answers. But everybody else who got up there (on the stand), she let them say what ever the f--k they wanted to," he said.
"I'm f-----g' pissed! I'm mad!" he said.
Superior Court Judge J.D. Smith gave Ratinoff a chance to respond to Becerra but she declined.
Later, though, Ratinoff said Becerra "felt when cross-examined that he could go on and on answering any question posed to him."
But, she added, "The rules of evidence are quite clear" that he "can't just answer anything under the sun."
Ratinoff said Becerra, 26, is a long-time member of the notorious gang. She claimed he was on a drug-binge high when he murdered Herman Jackson and James Harding, both in their early 40s, apparently to settle a dispute over a cocaine deal.
The victims were found in a room at the Pacific Grand Hotel. They were tied together, one behind the other, and had been strangled with electrical cords. Their pants were down around their ankles, an act of humiliation 18th Street gang members often use.
Ratinoff said one of the men died before the other, leaving one man to know his fate hours before it occurred.
"I do have to say that the manner in which these killings occurred ... is one of the worst homicides I've ever seen," said Ratinoff, a member of the District Attorney's Office's Hard Core Gang division.
And Becerra "is definitely one of the worst (criminals) that I have personally seen," she said.
Before imposing the sentence, Smith ticked off a list of prior offenses against the outspoken defendant, who has been in and out of state and county lockups for many years.
He said Becerra repeatedly tossed urine and fecal matter at his guards and also was caught with crudely fashioned prison knifes and other weapons several times.
He once ripped a toilet from the wall and tried to throw it at a guard, Smith said, and he assualted his former attorney.
Becerra sat stone-faced as the judge read the litany of offenses, then sentenced him to death. In the gallery, his mother and other family members also showed no emotion.
To the end, Becerra maintained his innocence and denied that he is a gang member. He also told Smith he only knows how to "rock" small amounts of cocaine into crack, not large amounts as the prosecutor alleged.
Although the victims' families apparently were not in court today, Becerra addressed them anyway.
"I want them to know that I had nothing to do with these deaths. I am sorry for their loss, but I'm not sorry to them because I don't have nothing to be sorry about." Copyright 1997 by City News Service
18th Street Gang Member Sentenced to Death
LOS ANGELES, Posted 12:23 p.m. October 31, 1997 -- An 18th Street gang member was sentenced to death Friday for strangling two men in a downtown hotel room the day after Christmas 1994 over a drug deal.