By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

July 17, 2001

OAKLAND — Jurors will begin deliberating today whether a Pleasanton man convicted of beating to death his best friend’s father more than six years ago should become only the second person in a modern, local case sentenced to die.

Lawyers wrapped up their arguments Monday in the weeklong penalty phase of Daniel Christopher Johnson’s trial for beating Vincent Henneberry to death in January 1995 as the union electrician returned to his Pleasanton home.

County prosecutor Colton Carmine said a self-absorbed Johnson deserved to die for the rare Valley killing. With greed and a “hedonistic-type of personality,” Johnson plotted, waited then acted out a brutal beating designed for him to make off with easy money, Carmine said.

“This case is all about money,” he told jurors. “The hatred and greed on the part of Dan Johnson are longstanding emotions. This case is cast right out of hell.”

But defense attorney James Giller tried to make clear to jurors that they individually would be making a decision to kill a man or spare a life. Johnson was certainly guilty, Giller acknowledged, but sending the 27-year-old man to prison for the rest of his life would be a punishment severe enough.

“We’re not going to make excuses for this crime,” Giller said. “We’re not going to try to justify it. But Dan Johnson wants to live and we’re asking you to give life without the possibility of parole.”

Johnson was found guilty late last month of killing Henneberry, 55, then flying off to Reno with his friend and the victim’s son Marc Vincent Henneberry, 27. They were arrested at a casino days later after using Vincent Henneberry’s credit cards on plane tickets and a hotel room.

The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated about three days before reaching the decision. They struggled for another two days — at one point telling Judge Vern Nakahara they were hopelessly deadlocked — before convicting Johnson of also intending to profit from the killing and lying in wait.

Deliberations could intensify in the penalty phase if one juror, who said in open court he “regrettably” approved the guilty verdict on the special circumstances, is once again the sole dissenter.

Johnson would be only the second person in a Valley case to receive a death sentence in recent history.

Stephen Wayne Bonilla was sentenced to death for hiring a Mesa, Arizona man to kill nightclub owner Jerry Lee Harris, of Danville, in 1987 in Pleasanton. Hired killer William Nichols was later sentenced to life in prison after a prosecutor declined to impanel another jury after jurors in two separate penalty phases could not reach a unanimous decision.