The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a gang member’s death sentence for fatally shooting three young men 20 years ago — who was also convicted of attempted murder in Santa Monica.
The state’s highest court rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in the trial of Marcus Dorwin Adams, who was sent to death row in 2003 after being convicted of first-degree murder for the Sept. 7, 1994, shooting deaths of Dayland Hicks, 22, and Trevon Boyd, 20, both of Los Angeles, and Lamar Armstrong, 18, of Inglewood.
The three were killed while sitting in a car in South Los Angeles.
Jurors also convicted Adams of the attempted murder of a security guard outside a Santa Monica credit union, along with taking a woman’s car by force in a neighborhood nearly — both on Oct. 3, 1994.
At his July 2003 sentencing, Adams was unrepentant.
“I can’t say I’m sorry. I’m not sorry for anything I ever did,” he said.
Four days before the killings, Adams had been released on parole from prison after serving time for his conviction for discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
Adams was initially charged with the killings in 1994, but the case was dismissed a year later because of problems with witnesses.
The charges were refiled in 1999 after Adams had been convicted in Santa Barbara County and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a deadly bank robbery in which a mother of three was shot in the back by Adams’ crime partner as she ran from the bank.
