Cooley Urges Execution for Death Row Inmate Convicted in Glendale Hotel Room Murder

District Attorney Steve Cooley asked the Los Angeles Superior Court Wednesday to execute a Death Row inmate convicted in the 1985 murder of a pizza deliveryman in a Glendale hotel room. 

Mitchell Carleton Sims, 52, was convicted of first-degree murder 21-year-old John Steven Harrigan who was found strangled and drowned, according to the Glendale News-Press. 

Sims also faces a death sentence in South Carolina, according to a news release. Sims was a disgruntled pizza delivery driver and had fled the restaurant where he worked in Hanahan, S.C., after murdering two co-workers. He moved to California with his girlfriend, who was also convicted and serves a life sentence. 

Cooley asked the same order for Tiequon Aundray Cox, 46, who was convicted of first-degree murder of a grandmother, her daughter and two grandchildren - one 8 and the other 13 - on Aug. 31, 1984, officials said. 

Cox, a Rollin 60s gang member, shot a grandmother three times in the head with a .30 caliber military rifle, then killed her grandsons as they slept in their beds, officials said. The 24-year-old mother of the two boys woke up and screamed when Cox shot her dead. A 14-year-old male cousin survived the shootings by hiding in a closet.   

“Mitchell Sims and Tiequon Cox were tried and convicted of first-degree murder by juries. The jurors in each case also found the special circumstances alleged against each defendant to be true. The same juries recommended that each die for their crimes. Judges reviewed the jury recommendations and agreed, formally sentencing each man to death. Each killer appealed the conviction and sentence. Every appellate court turned them down,” the District Attorney said in a prepared statement.

In the past 23 years, California has executed 13 inmates, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

Cooley requested the court-approved single-drug protocol--used in Ohio, Washington and Arizona for Death Row inmate executions.

“It is time Sims and Cox pay for their crimes,” Cooley said. “I am joining with the California District Attorneys Association and other District Attorneys throughout California in asking the Superior Courts throughout the state to hold these killers responsible for the innocent lives they took so many years ago.”

A federal judge stopped California executions in 2006 after findings showed that the three-drug method for lethal injections caused too much pain and suffering for the inmate before death, according to the Chicago Tribune. An appeals court blocked a resumption of executions over the same reasons. 

Governor Jerry Brown told prison authorities to consider using the single-drug execution protocol, The Tribune reported. 

This comes before a November ballot measure that seeks to repeal capital punishment in California, the Times reported. 

“The death penalty was voted into law by the citizens of this state and continues to be supported by a majority of the citizens,” Cooley said. He noted that it has been six years since the last California execution. 

“It is time to enforce the law of the state and carry out the death sentences that have been returned by juries, imposed by trial judges and affirmed by our appellate court system,” Cooley said.