Robber asks for death penalty Robber asks for death penalty (June 04, 2004)

Former MV resident says he is ready to die

Seti Scanlan, who insists that he should die for a string of robberies and the murder of a Burlingame bank manager, said last week that he opposes capital punishment but believes the penalty would be appropriate in his own case.

Scanlan, a former Mountain View resident, also shot a Mountain View police officer during a chase.

"I can't fix what I destroyed, and it's time to be destroyed,'' Scanlan, 24, said during his second day of testimony in a San Mateo County Superior courtroom in Redwood City. "I do not believe in capital punishment but in my case, yes, I want to die.''

Scanlan, who has pleaded guilty to numerous robberies and shootings along the Peninsula, told jurors that death would be a fair and just sentence. The jury will decide whether he spends life in prison without parole or receives the death penalty. Closing arguments were presented Tuesday.

The prosecution questioned Scanlan about his motives for insisting on death, asking whether they were a "ploy'' to encourage jurors to withhold a death sentence recommendation because "they think he wants it so we won't give it to him,'' said San Mateo County Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

Scanlan replied: "There's no tricks from here on.''

He has repeated throughout the case that he served as ringleader of a robbery team that grew increasingly violent and audacious. The team was responsible for taking over the Wells Fargo Bank branch in Burlingame on Oct. 11, 2002, and Scanlan confessed to fatally shooting bank manager Alice Martel, 34, during the robbery.

Martel was one of dozens of victims and the bank incident one of 10 robberies that Scanlan orchestrated with his group, which gradually started to choose more crowded targets and grew comfortable pulling guns in broad daylight, prosecutors said.

Scanlan has admitted to shooting Mountain View police Officer Cary Shueh after a traffic stop in November 2002. The officer survived a bullet wound to his cheek, though Scanlan said that he was shooting to kill.

"I was going to go all out,'' he said. Several friends in the car with Scanlan agreed to step out and start firing at Shueh but Scanlan found himself shooting at the officer alone, he testified.

When Scanlan got back into the car as it sped away, his friends "were looking at (him) like 'Man, this guy's psycho,''' he testified.

Defense attorneys Cliff Cretan and Michael DeVoy have argued that Scanlan deserves life in prison because of a rough childhood and years of anger and rejection.

-- Bay City News

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