Orange County Sets Ramirez Trial

Richard Ramirez, the man accused of 14 slayings in Los Angeles, was ordered by an Orange County judge Friday to stand trial on rape and attempted murder charges in connection with a 1985 attack on a Mission Viejo couple.

Now the question is whether Ramirez, accused of being the Night Stalker who terrorized the Southland two years ago, will actually be tried on the Orange County charges. Orange County prosecutors said that they probably will not pursue a trial if Ramirez is convicted and sentenced to death in Los Angeles.

But at a hearing in Santa Ana on Friday, Ramirez’s attorneys refused to discount the possibility that they will seek an Orange County trial first.

The defense lawyers have been feuding with Judge Michael A. Tynan, who will preside over the Los Angeles case, because they want more time to prepare for that trial. Tynan had ordered them to trial in October, but relented and set a February date.

Ramirez, 27, is accused of the Aug. 25, 1985, break-in at the Mission Viejo home of William Carns and his fiancee. Carns was shot three times in the head, and his fiancee was raped by a man who declared to her that he was the “Night Stalker.”

The judge set a Nov. 25 date for Ramirez’s arraignment in Orange County Superior Court. If Ramirez refuses to waive his right to a speedy trial, Orange County judges must set a trial date for him within 60 days. That would make it impossible for him to be in Los Angeles for the scheduled February start of his trial there.