Killer’s Jury Deadlocks on Death Penalty

The fate of Mauricio Silva, a parolee convicted of killing three teen-agers within weeks of his release from prison last year, remains undetermined after a Los Angeles County jury reported Thursday it was hopelessly deadlocked on whether to recommend that Silva face the gas chamber.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Douglas McKee, declaring a mistrial in the penalty phase of the trial, set a new court date of Aug. 19, at which time prosecutors will announce whether they intend to continue seeking the death penalty. If not, Silva would be automatically sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

The jury, which deliberated for 13 days after hearing testimony on Silva’s background for more than two months, split 7 to 5 in favor of the death penalty.

Delay of Months

Prosecutors said a retrial on the sentencing issue only could take another four to six months.

Silva, 24, was convicted in April of two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in the shotgun deaths of Walter P. Sanders and Monique Michelle Hilton, both 16, and the strangulation of Martha Kitzler, 17, Silva’s half-sister.

Silva committed the murders after his May, 1984, prison release after serving more than five years for manslaughter in the 1978 shooting death of a 16-year-old boy.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lonnie A. Felker, who prosecuted the current case, termed the jury’s deadlock “very disappointing,” blaming it on legal guidelines that allow a virtually unlimited defense based on sympathy.

Scenes From His Life

“The defense went on for three months showing photographs of places he had lived, people he had known, his parents’ wedding photographs,” Felker said. “It’s getting to a point where you drag it so far away from the facts of the case that jurors have a difficult task deciding.”

Defense Counsel Michael O. Clark, who said he was “very pleased” by the hung jury, termed Silva “a very damaged individual . . . who really does not know how to function in society.” He predicted that a retrial would bring the same results.

One juror who voted against the death penalty, Manuel Quevedo, said he did so because of Silva’s upbringing and because of failings of the state’s criminal justice system.

‘The Man Was Sick’

“The main thing that swayed me was the way he was raised,” said Quevedo, 59, a supervisor for the city Transportation Department. “He had no home, no house to call his home, no parental love . . . . The man was sick. . . . He kept on killing, killing, killing.

“The system failed by turning him loose after the first murder. . . . They should have kept him in jail.”

A plea bargain approved for Silva in the 1978 killing became an issue during the 1984 campaign for the district attorney’s office. The Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported that then-Dist. Atty. Robert H. Philibosian was involved as a junior prosecutor in a deal that allowed Silva to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, resulting in his 1984 release. Philibosian, who lost the election to Ira Reiner, said the decision was made by his superiors.