San Diego

A federal judge has turned aside convicted murderer Michael E. Kennedy’s request for a new trial, ruling that evidence allegedly withheld by prosecutors would not have affected the outcome of his trial. Kennedy was found guilty of the rape and murder of an illegal alien.

Lawyers for Kennedy, a former Federal Protective Services officer at the San Ysidro border crossing, argued that prosecutors failed to turn over to the defense a letter from a distinguished pathologist that challenged the government’s version of the killing in November, 1979, of Maria Lopez de Felix.

Kennedy, 30, was tried three times for the 19-year-old alien’s murder. The first two trials ended in hung juries, but he was convicted in the third trial and sentenced to life in prison in January, 1981.