Conviction in Garden Grove murder overturned
A federal judge says a juror's 'false and misleading' statements during jury selection are enough to toss out the verdict. The defendant has been on death row since 1985.
A federal judge has overturned the conviction of a death row inmate condemned for the 1983 rape and murder of woman outside a Garden Grove bar because the jury foreman--now an FBI agent--deliberately lied about his employment status and failed to disclose that he was already a candidate for a job with the bureau.
U.S. District Court Judge Consuelo B. Marshall determined that juror Thomas Alston's repeated "false and misleading" statements during jury selection in the 1985 trial "fatally undermines the court's confidence in his impartiality."
As a result, Marshall ordered this week that inmate Richard Raymond Ramirez either be released from San Quentin's death row or be granted a new trial.
Deputy state Atty. Gen. William Wood, who defended the conviction in court, said he had not yet decided whether to appeal the judge's decision.
"We're examining our options," Wood said. "We've advised the district attorney to let them know in case they have to make a decision on retrial."
Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said in a statement that he would urge the attorney general's office to ask the judge to reconsider her ruling, or appeal it to a higher court. He vowed to retry the case if it was returned to Orange County.
"Mr. Ramirez was, and continues to be, a poster child for the death penalty," Rackauckas said. "We will make sure justice is done in this case."
Alston, now a special agent in the FBI's Portland field office, declined comment.
Ramirez was convicted of the rape, sodomy and murder of Kimberly Gonzales, whose partially nude body was discovered Nov. 21, 1983, in an alley behind Mr. Barry's Bar on Westminster Avenue.
The 22-year-old bank teller from Norwalk had been stabbed 19 times and bled to death.
Ramirez, who was then on parole for previous convictions of rape, possession of a concealed weapon and receiving stolen property, acknowledged leaving the bar with Gonzales about 1 a.m. after a night of drinking and dancing, but denied killing her.
At trial, the prosecutor argued that a beer bottle with Ramirez's fingerprints on it was found in the alley near Gonzales' body, proving he had been with her behind the bar. Ramirez claimed he gave the woman his beer before he drove home.
The prosecution also called a witness who testified that Ramirez raped her at knife-point years earlier and cut her face in a similar manner to the way Gonzales' was cut.
