Doofus Of The Day #290

Today's deluded Doofus is from Sacramento, California.

Kevin Wayne Dunigan told the jury, "You're being deceived."

Not only were police and prosecutors totally wrong for accusing him of the 1995 stabbing death of Gary Patrick Veirs, Dunigan said in his closing argument Tuesday, but he also had the cure for global warming and how to win the war in Afghanistan.

It was right after Dunigan told the panel, "I've been running the country," that former President George W. Bush "did everything I told him" and if current President Barack Obama is lucky, "I'll work with him," that the judge stepped in.

"Looking at the jurors' expression of disbelief, in terms of what you're arguing, I don't think it's very helpful," Sacramento Superior Court Judge James L. Long told Dunigan, after ordering the jury outside while he gave the defendant some advice. "But if you want to continue, you can."

With that, Dunigan – who insisted on representing himself in the murder trial that went to the jury Tuesday – cranked it up once again in one of the more unusual closing arguments to ring through the county courthouse in recent months.

"I've got these people (sued) in federal court for millions of dollars," Dunigan, 46, went on. He told the jury he's been "fighting corporations," and that Sacramento police have had it in for him for 20 years.

What he didn't do, Dunigan said, was stab the 34-year-old Veirs to death on the night of Aug. 28, 1995, in front of the victim's house in the 7300 block of Stockdale Street in Meadowview. But if he did, it was only because Veirs and his girlfriend got the better of him in a brawl prosecutors say the defendant instigated.

. . .

A long-time offender with a 20-year criminal history that features convictions for drugs, assaulting police and other offenses, Dunigan had been incarcerated in Pelican Bay State Prison when Sacramento detectives re-examined the then-unsolved Gary Veirs slaying last year and turned up his DNA on a cold-case hit.

The DNA tests showed Dunigan's genetic material inside Veirs' fingernails. Police issued an arrest warrant on Dunigan on Feb. 3. He went to trial Oct. 28.

There's more at the link.

Mr. Dunigan's illustrious achievements (as reported by him) don't seem to have impressed the jury, which later convicted him of first-degree murder. However, given that he represented himself at the trial, and given the nature of his outrageous statements, one has to wonder whether an insanity defense isn't inevitable on appeal . . .

Peter