Judge Imposes Gag Order on Stalker Case Comments

A Los Angeles Municipal Court judge on Tuesday imposed a gag order forbidding public comments by lawyers, police and other officials involved in the highly publicized murder case of Night Stalker suspect Richard Ramirez.

The order was issued by Judge Elva R. Soper at the request of Ramirez’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Allen Adashek. At a brief hearing before Soper, in which Ramirez looked on, Deputy Dist. Atty. P. Philip Halpin, who is prosecuting the case, did not protest the order.

Ramirez, 25, who is scheduled to enter pleas Sept. 27, is being held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail on charges of one count of murder and seven other felonies in Los Angeles County. He has also been charged with murder, attempted murder, burglary and robbery by San Francisco authorities.

The El Paso native, a drifter who has spent much of the last five years in California, is suspected by authorities of having committed as many as 14 slayings and 21 assaults, kidnapings and rapes in a grisly spree that may have begun in June, 1984.

Overriding Adashek’s objection, Soper also has granted a request by Halpin that dental X-rays, photos and impressions of Ramirez’s teeth be taken by the county medical examiner’s office for use as evidence.

In a statement to the judge Friday, Halpin said Ramirez’s “teeth are unique in appearance and are believed to have been described by numerous victims and witnesses for the prosecution.

“It is also believed that the defendant was being treated dentally at the time of the commission of these crimes and that X-rays taken during the course of that treatment, when compared with these proposed X-rays, will help determine the defendant’s whereabouts during the period in question.”

Under the terms of the gag order, no witnesses, court officers, public officials, law enforcement officers or attorneys can publicly release purported statements from Ramirez or documents concerning the case. They are also precluded from commenting outside of court on the weight or effect of evidence against Ramirez or the identity of prospective witnesses.

Records Sealed

The order also seals court records, which, until Tuesday, contained little information except for a lengthy medical report pertaining to Ramirez’s visits to County-USC Medical Center in 1983. The records, obtained from the hospital at the request of the prosecution, primarily concern a two-week hospitalization in September, 1983, in which Ramirez was treated for an infection to a finger on his right hand.

Ramirez told doctors that he had been bitten on the hand by a man whom he had punched in the mouth. The records also included a report on a subsequent hospital visit that December, in which Ramirez was treated for a cut on his right hand.

The gag order follows Soper’s approval Friday, at Adashek’s request, of a ban on any attorneys or others from seeing Ramirez without the defender’s approval.

Adashek has been publicly criticized by Manuel Barraza, an El Paso attorney who said he was retained by Ramirez’s family. Barraza has contended that Adashek is more interested in money and fame through book and movie deals than in proving his client innocent--a charge that Adashek has strongly denied. Barraza has returned to El Paso, after making a series of comments to reporters about Ramirez after jailhouse visits with him.