Guilty Verdicts

In the 12-week murder trial, jurors never heard Robert Blake testify in his own defense. But Wednesday, minutes after the jury acquitted him of charges that he killed his wife, Blake emerged from the Van Nuys courthouse with plenty to say. Before a battalion of reporters and news cameras, the actor turned in a performance resembling the Oscar-acceptance speech that he has never had the opportunity to give during his 60-year acting career.

A reputed gang member from the Inland Empire was convicted of second-degree murder Friday for the June 2002 stabbing death of a gay man outside a downtown Riverside bar. Dorian Lee Gutierrez, 21, of Riverside was the last of five reputed gang members found guilty in the killing of Jeffrey Owens, 40, of Moreno Valley. The men attacked Owens and his friends in the parking lot of the Menagerie nightclub, authorities said.

Former Silicon Valley financier Frank Quattrone appealed his criminal obstruction-of-justice conviction Thursday, arguing that there was little evidence against him and that he wasn't allowed to tell the jury his side of the story. In a 108-page brief filed in the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, Quattrone's lawyers said the trial judge "consistently favored" the prosecution, resulting in a "palpably unfair trial."

A Costa Mesa man was convicted of second-degree murder Wednesday for killing two people while driving drunk. Stephen Anthony Houston-Irving, 31, was driving north on the San Diego Freeway in Irvine on Oct. 24, 2003 when he struck an SUV. Killed were Linda Rojas and 10-year-old Giovanni Jimenez, who were on their way to Rojas' daughter's birthday party. Houston-Irving is set to be sentenced Jan. 14 in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

A federal jury in Idaho on Thursday acquitted a Saudi computer student of charges that he spread terrorism on the Internet, handing the Justice Department a resounding defeat in a case that turned on a provision of the USA Patriot Act. The case of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34, in Boise had become a test of the scope of U.S. anti-terrorism laws, including a provision of the Patriot Act that targets secondary players.

A man found guilty nine years ago of slaying an Oxnard mother of four has had his conviction overturned by a federal court because he wasn't advised of his Miranda rights. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also noted that Ventura County Sheriff's Sgt. Michael Barnes, who spoke with the murder suspect in this case, often failed to advise suspects of their rights.

Re "Martha Stewart Found Guilty; Prison Likely," March 6: I feel so much safer now that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's Justice Department has been successful in getting that dangerous criminal Martha Stewart off the streets. When you have time, Mr. Ashcroft, could you consider slapping former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay on the wrists to ensure that justice is equal? Richard C. Armendariz Huntington Beach Two words about Martha: Kenneth Lay. Plus, this guy does not even have a decent chicken pot pie recipe.

Beacon Hill Service Corp., which prosecutors say moved $9 billion through bank accounts at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., was found guilty by a Manhattan jury on four counts of transmitting money without a license. The verdict came after a five-day trial that included testimony about the role of J.P. Morgan in moving the money, some of which was tied to drug trafficking, official corruption and organized crime, according to prosecutors. J.P.

Italy's highest court on Thursday overturned a murder conviction against former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti, ruling that he was not guilty of charges that he had ordered the Mafia killing of a journalist. The Court of Cassation annulled a verdict by a lower court last November that had convicted the seven-time prime minister and sentenced him to 24 years in prison.

Arthur Kinoy, the short, bald lawyer and educator who loomed like Hercules over civil rights causes from the trials of executed spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and the anti-Vietnam Chicago Seven to cases involving racial integration and federal wiretapping, has died. He was 82. Kinoy, a founding co-president of the Manhattan-based Center for Constitutional Rights, died Friday at his home in Montclair, N.J., of unstated causes.