Deukmejian Refuses to OK Extradition in Pizza Killings

Overruling the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, Gov. George Deukmejian announced Tuesday that he will not permit extradition of the accused Domino’s Pizza killers to face murder charges in South Carolina before they go on trial for a murder in Glendale.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said last month that he would take the unusual step of seeking to return suspects Carlton Sims and Ruby Padgett to South Carolina because he believed death penalty cases are handled more swiftly there.

But at a Sacramento news conference Tuesday, Deukmejian said he wants to first try the pair in California before “the evidence can get stale (and) make it more difficult to have a successful prosecution.” After the trial here, the governor said, Sims and Padgett will be returned to South Carolina to face prosecution.

Deukmejian said Reiner’s recommendation “did not in any way affect my final decision.”

“My primary responsibility is to see that justice is promptly and fairly administered here in California,” he said.

Reiner Aide ‘Dumbfounded’

Reiner is vacationing in Europe and was not available for comment. But Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert I. Garcetti said he was “dumbfounded” by the governor’s decision and said he will try to persuade the governor to change his mind. Extradition, Garcetti contended, would put the state in a “no-lose situation.”

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has estimated that the South Carolina trial, on charges stemming from the Dec. 3 slayings of two Domino’s employees in Hanahan, S.C., will take about six months. In contrast, the attorneys say, it will probably take two to three years to try Sims and Padgett in Los Angeles County for the Dec. 10 torture and killing of Glendale Domino’s deliveryman John S. Harrigan.

Deukmejian’s decision, Garcetti said, “greatly impedes our chances of successfully obtaining a death penalty,” noting that if the pair were already convicted of the South Carolina murders before being tried here, those convictions could then be used as evidence in the penalty phase of the Glendale trial.

Garcetti said he plans to “set forth in writing” his objections in hopes that Deukmejian will reconsider his decision.

Meanwhile, the governor’s decision was hailed by defense attorneys for the South Carolina pair.

“I think it’s a sensible decision,” said Padgett’s counsel, Patricia Nelson. “What Ira Reiner tried to do is so unprecedented. To hold a capital case in abeyance while you ship people to another state is pretty much unheard of.”

‘First Shot at Them’

Glendale Mayor Jerold Milner, who had urged the governor to keep Sims and Padgett in California, said he is “pleased that we get the first shot at them.”

“I certainly understand that it would be nice to see them tried quickly,” he said, “but I’m not sure that when there is a flaw in the criminal justice system, we should react by sending them elsewhere. We should fix the system.”

Sims, 25, and Padgett, 20, could face the death penalty in California if convicted of the Glendale slaying. In South Carolina, Sims faces the death penalty, but Padgett, charged as an accessory, does not.

Their preliminary hearing on the Glendale charges is scheduled for March 12.

Sims and Padgett were arrested in Las Vegas in late December and voluntarily returned to California, where in addition to murder they are charged with attempted murder and robbery.

Standard Procedures Cited

At his press conference, Deukmejian said his decision to deny extradition was based on standard procedures for handling defendants accused of crimes in two states.

“South Carolina has requested that we invert the normal practice of trying defendants in this state first before extraditing them,” he said.

Deukmejian said he regarded Reiner’s offer to honor South Carolina’s extradition request as a recommendation only.

Reiner, a Democrat, and Deukmejian, a Republican, sparred over the matter last month, with the governor’s office insisting that it is Deukmejian’s prerogative to make extradition decisions.

Reiner had expressed surprise, saying that governors generally grant “automatic” approval to prosecutors’ extradition requests.

Garcetti said Tuesday: “I would hope that the governor and others don’t have such sensitive skins that their decision-making processes are affected by” their feelings concerning Reiner.

Politics Denied

Kevin Brett, a spokesman for the governor, denied that politics played a role in the decision. “The governor took an action today intended to help protect the integrity of the evidence against Sims and Padgett,” he said.

Meanwhile, South Carolina officials said they do not know what impact a delay will have on their proceedings.

“The prosecutor wanted to go ahead and prosecute the case here,” said Mark Dillard, a spokesman for the South Carolina attorney general’s office. “Yes, I think you could say that we’re disappointed.”