Judge Rules Against a Mistrial in Stalker Case

The judge in the Night Stalker case denied a defense motion for a mistrial Wednesday and ordered jury selection to resume in the trial of Richard Ramirez, the drifter accused of murdering 13 Los Angeles County residents.

Beginning today, attorneys will choose 13 alternate jurors and then randomly pick one of them to replace a juror who was dismissed for misconduct on Tuesday.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael A. Tynan dismissed juror Rudolph Wagner on Tuesday. The judge found that Wagner had violated a court order by talking about how he would vote in the penalty phase of the case, assuming a guilty verdict.

Specifically, Tynan had concluded that Wagner, a black, had said in the courthouse corridor that he would not condemn defendant Ramirez, a Latino, to die because there already is a disproportionate number of minorities on Death Row.

The accusation against Wagner was made last week by two women who were among the pool of prospective jurors. Both of them, Deborah A. Drake and Janet Maack also have been excused from the case.

Ramirez’s lawyer, Daniel Hernandez, asked for the mistrial late Wednesday afternoon, using Wagner’s dismissal as grounds. If the judge had ruled in his favor, it would have required picking a entire new jury for a trial expected to last as long as two years.

Extensive Questioning

The controversy over Wagner’s remark has prompted extensive individual questioning of the remaining 41 jurors and prospective alternate jurors, and Tynan has postponed the start of the trial by a week, to Jan. 30.

When Maack reported Wagner’s remark last Thursday, a 12-member jury, including Wagner, already had been sworn in. Hernandez and the co-prosecutors, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Attys. Phil Halpin and Alan Yochelson, had been in the process of picking alternate jurors.

Ramirez, from El Paso, is accused of murdering 13 Los Angeles County residents in a spree of nighttime residential attacks that left many others injured. Ramirez also is charged with a 14th murder in San Francisco, as well as attempted murder and sexual assault in Orange County.

He has been held in Los Angeles County Jail without bail since he was captured by citizens in East Los Angeles on Labor Day weekend in 1985.

There are now 40 people left in the jury pool that totaled nearly 1,600 when jury selection began on July 21.