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Conviction stands in two Lancaster assaults By Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer Saturday, June 19, 2004 - LANCASTER -- A state appeals court has upheld a reputed gang member's conviction for two 1999 attacks, in which he beat a gay man as well as a man who had accused him of burglarizing his car. The 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected Rance Caesar Hill's claim that the prosecutor showed bias when he dismissed two prospective jurors who were African-American, but agreed to reduce his 21-year prison sentence by one year. "This claim is meritless," the appellate ruling said. The prosecutor explained to the judge that he did not want the two African-Americans to serve on the jury in part because of their occupations. One was a social worker; the other was a postal worker. Hill also contended that jurors should not have been allowed to learn that his co-defendant had pleaded no contest and that the trial judge erred by admitting into evidence an inflammatory photograph, showing him standing next to a man holding a gun. Both claims were rejected by appellate justices. Hill was convicted in Los Angeles Superior Court of assault with a deadly weapon, battery with serious injury and robbery with great bodily injury, with prior prison term and prior serious felony conviction enhancements. He was acquitted of attempted murder. Hill, then 26, was sentenced in April 2003 to 21 years in prison. The three-judge appellate panel agreed the trial judge erred in adding a year to Hill's sentence because of a prior prison term, so the sentence will be reduced by one year. Hill and two other men yelled anti-gay epithets during a June 2, 1999, attack in which they used a mop handle and a large beer bottle to beat an HIV-positive man outside an apartment on Kingtree Avenue. "There was blood everywhere, even on the backyard walls," the ruling said. Eleven days later, Hill and two other men beat a Lancaster man who had approached them on Boyden Avenue while looking for an amplifier stolen from his car. The man was beaten unconscious. His jaw was broken and his jawbone jammed into an ear bone, prosecutors said. Hill stole the man's wallet, gold chain and cash, prosecutors said. The two attacks occurred less than six months after Hill had been released from state prison on parole. Hill was sent to prison in 1995 after convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer or firefighter. In prison, he was convicted of battery of a correctional officer. News Topics | Home | Research | History | Blood Gangs | Crip Gangs | People| Life in a Gang | Gallery | Iraqi Cards | Memorial | Migration | Graffiti | Resume| Injunctions Homicides | Maps | California Prisons | Contact

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