A mistrial was declared Tuesday when jurors failed to reach a verdict in the trial of a 59-year-old man charged with fatally shooting a neighbor at an Anaheim motel.<\/p>\n
Amir Karkehabadi of Anaheim was charged with murder with a sentencing enhancement for the discharge of a gun causing death. Jurors acquitted him of first-degree murder and were deadlocked 11-1 for acquittal on second-degree murder. Jurors told attorneys after the mistrial they were split on voluntary manslaughter as well.<\/p>\n
A pretrial hearing was scheduled for Jan. 9 with a retrial scheduled in February. Prosecutors can no longer try the defendant for first-degree murder, but Karkehabadi still faces second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter.<\/p>\n
Karkehabadi is accused of killing 66-year-old Steven Hawkins on June 14, according to the criminal complaint.<\/p>\n
Police were called to the Villa Inn, 733 S. Beach Blvd., at 6:12 p.m. that day regarding the shooting, Anaheim police Sgt. Matt Sutter said. Hawkins, who was shot once, was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead an hour later, Sutter said.<\/p>\n
The two were living next door to each other at the motel and had run-ins prior to the shooting.<\/p>\n
Senior Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney argued it was first-degree murder because Karkehabadi shot Hawkins in the back as he was running away. Defense attorney Lee Stonum argued it was a case of self-defense because Hawkins was a pimp who frightened the defendant.<\/p>\n
Karkehabadi had called Hawkins\u2019 girlfriend a \u201cwhore,\u201d prompting Hawkins to kick the defendant\u2019s door, Birney argued in the trial. The defendant brandished a gun and then shot Hawkins, Birney said.<\/p>\n
The defendant had also allegedly called Hawkins a \u201cblack monkey\u201d and \u201cbanana eater,\u201d Birney argued.<\/p>\n
Karkehabadi was charged with a racially motivated attack on a man and woman in Stanton Jan. 13, 2023, according to court records.<\/p>\n
He was accused of hitting and shoving a woman in a park, and when the man confronted him, Karkehabadi called him racial slurs and threatened to \u201cstomp his face,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n
When the woman asked him why he struck her, he said, \u201cBecause you bumped into me,\u201d according to court records.<\/p>\n
Issues were raised by defense attorneys regarding his mental health, but his attempts to have his case diverted failed, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Defense attorneys were successful in having the charges dismissed May 16 of last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mistrial was declared Tuesday when jurors failed to reach a verdict in the trial of a 59-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,53416,5686,46759,53417],"class_list":["post-97689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-declared","tag-killing","tag-mistrial","tag-motel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}