U.S. to Retry Layton in ’78 Death of Rep. Ryan

The government said Wednesday that it will retry Larry Layton on charges of conspiring to murder Rep. Leo Ryan near the Peoples Temple compound in Guyana in 1978.

Although the jury in the first trial voted 11 to 1 for acquittal, such serious charges “should be determined by a jury and not by a prosecutor,” U.S. Atty. Joseph Russoniello told reporters. “It’s what the people of the United States should expect.”

Tony Tamburello, one of Layton’s lawyers, later accused Russoniello of “grandstanding” and said a retrial would be a “political persecution of the first magnitude.”

The trial was scheduled for Jan. 2.

Layton, the only former Peoples Temple member to be tried in the United States, is charged with conspiring with the Rev. Jim Jones to kill Ryan and a U.S. diplomat. Ryan and four other people were killed on an airstrip in November, 1978, hours before Jones and 912 followers died in their jungle compound.

Conspiracy Alleged

Layton shot and wounded some temple defectors in one airplane, but witnesses agreed that he did not shoot Ryan. The prosecution contends, however, that there was a conspiracy among Jones, Layton and others to keep outsiders from learning about conditions at Jonestown and that the conspiracy led to Ryan’s death.

The retrial has been delayed by prosecution attempts to bring in evidence of statements by Jones that were excluded from the first trial.

Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham has agreed to allow some previously excluded evidence, including a tape-recorded statement made by Jones a few days before the shootings in which he told his followers that Ryan might not leave alive.

Beckham repeated his earlier refusal to allow into evidence the so-called “last-hour” tape, in which babies can be heard crying while Jones exhorts his followers to drink poison. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling July 29, and Russoniello said the Justice Department has decided not to appeal.