A state appeals court panel upheld a man’s conviction for a series of stabbings — one of them fatal — that targeted homeless victims in Hollywood seven years ago.
In a ruling Monday, the three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there was substantial evidence that Domingo Rodas was not competent to stand trial.
The appellate court justices found that the record showed that Rodas “understood the nature of the criminal proceedings and could assist counsel in the conduct of a defense in a rational manner.”
Rodas was sent to a state mental hospital in 2012 after it was deemed that he was not mentally competent to stand trial, but he was sent back for trial after being found mentally competent in 2013, according to the 19-page ruling.
Rodas was convicted in March 2014 of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing Keith Fallin as the 43-year-old man slept outside outside the Music Box Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard on Aug. 6, 2009.
Jurors found true the special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait.
He was also found guilty of attempted murder for attacks on two other men the same day.
Jurors acquitted Rodas of two other killings — the stabbing death of 52- year-old Roger Cota, who was killed a few blocks from Fallin on the same afternoon and the death of Frederic Lombardo, 45, who was found dead about three weeks earlier on the same block as Fallin was killed.
