A state appellate court panel has rejected the latest appeal filed on behalf of a Littlerock man who was convicted of second-degree murder for a woman’s fatal mauling by four pit bulls he owned.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal found that Alex Donald Jackson is “not entitled to relief” under a recent change in state law that affects some murder cases.
Superior Court Judge Lisa M. Chung had earlier rejected a bid for re-sentencing by Jackson, who is serving a 15-year-to-life state prison term for the May 9, 2013, dog attack on Pamela Devitt.
The 63-year-old Palmdale grandmother sustained about 200 puncture wounds in the dog attack, which began when she was walking about one-eighth of a mile from Jackson’s home as part of her exercise routine. She died in an ambulance while being taken to the hospital, according to the appellate court panel’s 13-page ruling.
A motorist’s pickup truck was also chased by the dogs after the motorist—who called 911—honked her horn in an effort to stop the dogs from attacking the woman, Deputy District Attorney Ryan Williams said after the verdict.
Jackson was also found guilty of three drug-related charges—cultivating marijuana, possession of marijuana for sale and possession of a controlled substance—but acquitted of one count of assault with a deadly weapon involving an alleged run-in with a horseback rider in January 2013.
A state appeals court panel upheld Jackson’s conviction in an April 2016 ruling, and the California Supreme Court refused in July 2016 to hear the case.
In the latest ruling, the appellate court justices noted that Jackson regularly took in stray dogs abandoned in the desert that were used to guard his fenced property and protect his drug production and sales operation.
“In the 14 months preceding Devitt’s murder, dogs that escaped from appellant’s yard committed multiple attacks in which at least nine people and/or their horses were injured,” the panel noted. “Appellant watched at least two of these attacks as they took place, but did little or nothing to contain or control his dogs … Most, if not all, of the attacks occurred after appellant claimed to have reinforced the fence.”
