Following 14 days of deliberations in almost a month’s time period, a weary jury on Tuesday convicted Michael David Sullivan of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Jonathan Lefler-Panela outside Sam’s by the Sea restaurant on Jan. 8, 2006.
Several of Sullivan’s family members wept and two men angrily left their seats in the packed courtroom after the verdict was read. As a precaution, sheriff’s deputies put waist chains around Sullivan and handcuffed him, then led away before the jury was dismissed.
Sullivan, 27, faces a maximum term of 16-years-to-life in state prison when San Diego Superior Court Judge Frank Brown sentences him on Aug. 21. Sullivan, who lived in Pacific Beach at the time of the murder, testified he stabbed Lefler-Panela, 25, of Mission Valley, in self-defense after he tackled him outside the restaurant around 2 a.m.
Sullivan testified Lefler-Panela tackled him, and he pulled a knife and stabbed him while he the man pinned him on the ground.
Lefler-Panela was stabbed 17 times. A wound to the heart and two jabs to his lung were fatal.
“He was steadfast in his belief that it was self-defense,” said his attorney, Kerry Steigerwalt, afterwards.
It was reported the incident started with Sullivan and Lefler-Panela glaring at each other inside the nightclub. Sullivan threw the first punch to the victim’s face in the restaurant, and both were escorted outside. Sullivan got into his car and drove a short distance before returning after realizing he left a friend behind.
In the parking lot, he claimed he was jumped and pushed to the ground. Sullivan testified Lefler-Panela bit his nose twice, and someone else was kicking him. He said he grabbed a knife in his back pocket and stabbed Lefler-Panela repeatedly until he could get up and leave.
“The jury chose for some reason to disregard the reasonable portrayal of self-defense. Definitely an appeal will be filed,” Steigerwalt said.
The jury began deliberations on June 28 following three weeks of testimony. They sent notes indicating they were deadlocked 11-1, and one juror blamed another one for the impasse. The juror in question asked to be discharged on July 19, saying he had to take care of his ill 92-year-old mother and his wife, who was also ill.
After an alternate replaced the juror, the eight-woman, four-man jury told the court they reached a verdict after three hours of deliberations on Monday, July 16.
Steigerwalt faulted the speed of the verdict after the juror’s replacement, calling it “awfully irregular.”
Jurors met with attorneys and the judge afterwards. Deputy District Attorney Cheryl Suing-Jones said jurors did not believe Sullivan’s story or his claim that he was bitten twice on the nose by Lefler-Panela. She said jurors also didn’t believe Sullivan’s claim he was being kicked by others in the parking lot while he and the victim fought.
“They all felt good about their verdict,” Suing-Jones said. “They are the real heroes. They worked hard and didn’t give up.”
Brown praised jurors after their verdict, while noting they had illnesses, deaths and other hardship that occurred during deliberations.
“I’ve never seen a jury like you before. If you hadn’t resolve this case, there would have been a retrial,” the judge told them.
Over the course of the deliberations, one juror started chemotherapy, two jurors had deaths in their families, one juror said she developed migraines during deliberations and another juror got sick from food poisoning.
One juror had a prepaid vacation planned for Wednesday, July 25. She offered to give up her vacation if the jury still had not reached a verdict by then. Brown told her that giving up her vacation would be something she could voluntarily do. He said he would not order her to continue deliberations and miss the trip since she had informed the court of it much earlier.
Brown’s father died during deliberations. Brown had planned to go on vacation a few days after deliberations had started, but he canceled it, and attended the funeral.
On July 19, the judge turned down a motion for a mistrial made by Sullivan’s attorney, Kerry Steigerwalt, after he cited all the problems jurors were having. The trial began June 6.