Vista : Troiani Murder Trial Opening Still in Limbo

The long-awaited opening of the Laura Troiani murder trial remains unscheduled after the California Supreme Court on Thursday referred to the 4th District Court of Appeal the question of whether North County’s juries are racially imbalanced.

Geraldine Russell, Troiani’s attorney, had hoped the Supreme Court would agree to hear her contention that blacks are under-represented on North County juries, an argument that had been made unsuccessfully recently in another case that went before the Supreme Court.

Russell argued that some of her arguments on North County racial balance were different than those made in the other case, in which the Court of Appeal ultimately decided that North County’s jury makeup was fair. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling on appeal last month.

Russell bypassed the Court of Appeal on her own petition and directly asked the Supreme Court to consider her separate arguments on the racial balance of North County juries, but on Thursday, the jurists unanimously declined to take up the matter and ordered her petition referred instead to the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego. The court also ordered that the stay on the start-up of the Troiani trial be terminated.

Russell said she would ask the appellate court to order its own stay on the trial in advance of presenting her arguments to the appellate jurists, and she said if that court’s ruling on the issue of racial balance is unfavorable, she will appeal it back to the Supreme Court.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Walden said he will ask Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares on Monday to reschedule the start of Troiani’s trial although he recognizes it might be stayed once again by the appellate court.

Troiani and five former Marines are charged in the slaying of her husband, Staff Sgt. Carlo Troiani, on a rural Oceanside road in August, 1984. He allegedly was lured to the desolate site by his wife who feigned car trouble. She hired her alleged co-conspirators for $500 each to help her kill her husband, prosecutors contend.

Both sides now agree that it appears unlikely that testimony in the trial will begin until after the third anniversary of the murder. The other defendants’ trials are scheduled to begin after Troiani’s is completed.