An appeals court awarded a new trial for a mentally ill Santa Maria man who was convicted of shooting four people to death at an auto salvage yard in March 2008.
The judgment came down on Sept. 28 from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, which ordered a new sanity trial for Lee Leeds.
Leeds, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, was convicted of shooting his father, Richard Leeds; Dave Dubois; Terry Majan; and Ricardo Leal at Black Road Auto on March 18, 2008. Leeds admitted to the killings, but said he believed at the time that members of the Mexican mafia were going to kill him.
Leeds was found incompetent to stand trial and sent to Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County, where he participated in mock trials, according to court documents.
Four years later, Leeds was deemed mentally competent and stood trial in 2012. He was found guilty and sentenced to 100 years to life in state prison.
The appeals court found that the jury wasn’t given proper instructions.
“Leed’s conduct was based on the legal doctrine of self-defense and the jury was required to apply it to his perception of reality in order to evaluate his sanity,” the judges wrote. “The jury was instructed on self-defense, but was erroneously prohibited from applying it. Without applying the facts as Leeds perceived them to the law of self-defense, the jury would have no way of evaluating whether his paranoid schizophrenia rendered him capable of appreciating the wrongfulness of his actions.”
The court ordered a new sanity trial for Leeds, but only for the killing of his father. The court didn’t find any evidence that Leeds was in imminent danger when he killed the other three men.
“The judgment is reversed in part, and this matter is remanded for a new sanity trial regarding the killing of Leed’s father,” the judges wrote. “In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.”
This article appears in Oct 8-15, 2015.
