SANTA MONICA—Courtney Anthony Robinson, a 40-year-old man who was found guilty on February 18 on three charges of attempted murder, was determined by a jury on February 20 not to be sane at the time of the crimes.
Robinson was found guilty of stabbing three people in 2012. The victims included a 56-year-old man in Downtown Los Angeles on July 3, a man sitting on a bus bench by the Third Street Promenade on July 17, and a homeless woman in Hollywood on July 19.
In each incident, Robinson reportedly left the knife in his victims’ bodies and provided them with a written “death warrant,” signed with the alias “David Ben Keyes.”
On February 18, the jury determined, after nearly an hour of deliberation, that Robinson acted willfully, deliberately and with premeditation, that he personally used a knife in the commission of the crimes and that two of the victims suffered great bodily injury.
In his closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Ian Phan reportedly told jurors that Robinson admitted to a police detective that he intended to kill the victims. In Robinson’s defense, his attorney, Thomas Summers, countered that his client “was convinced that he was acting on the orders of God,” which would have rejected the allegation that Robinson acted willfully, deliberately and with premeditation.
Robinson, surrendered to police on July 20, 2012, after seeing his face on “wanted” fliers distributed around Los Angeles. He was ordered on February 20, to be sent to Patton State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital located in San Bernardino.
