Laguna Man’s Death Penalty Upheld in 1981 Rape and Murder

The state Supreme Court upheld two death sentences Thursday, bringing to 14 the number of such penalties approved in the 19 capital cases the justices have decided since a conservative majority emerged on the court a year ago.

The justices, by a vote of 5 to 2, affirmed the death sentence rendered against Thomas Martin Thompson of Laguna Beach for the rape and murder of a 20-year-old Mission Viejo woman in 1981.

In a unanimous decision, the court also upheld the death verdict returned against Alfred Dyer for the 1980 murders of two people in Oakland in a dispute over rings he believed were stolen from his fingers as he slept.

An Orange County Superior Court jury had voted to impose the death penalty on Thompson after only three hours of deliberation after he had been convicted in the stabbing death of Ginger Fleischli, whose body had been found in a shallow grave after her disappearance in September, 1981.

The prosecution charged that Thompson killed Fleischli to prevent her from reporting the rape and interfering with an illegal plan he and a fellow conspirator had developed to smuggle Vietnamese refugees out of Thailand.

A co-defendant in the case, David Leitch of Laguna Beach, was tried separately, found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in 1985.

The high court, in an opinion by Justice John A. Arguelles, rejected contentions raised by Thompson in the automatic appeal of his conviction and death sentence.

Among other things, the majority refused to accept the defendant’s claim that the jury should not have been allowed to hear testimony by a jail informant that Thompson had asked the informant to kill co-defendant Leitch and dispose of his car and body to make it appear that he had fled while free on bail.

“There is a God,” Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald said in Santa Ana Thursday upon hearing news of the high court decision.

“This is good news, it really is,” said Fitzgerald, who presided at Thompson’s trial and sentenced him to death.

Fitzgerald added that in his opinion, “Thompson and Leitch both should have received the death penalty. Leitch was the one with the motive who wanted the girl dead.”

When Leitch was convicted of second-degree murder by a separate jury in Fitzgerald’s courtroom, the judge criticized the jury’s verdict publicly.

In the majority opinion handed down Thursday, the court said that while it was “disconcerting” for the prosecution to rely on the questionable testimony of such informants, the defense had received “wide latitude” to cross-examine the witnesses.

“Nothing indicates this jury was anything other than conscientious, analytical and competent in discharging its responsibility,” Arguelles said.

Justice Stanley Mosk, in a dissent joined by Justice Allen E. Broussard, said that while Thompson’s conviction should be upheld, the sentence of death should be overturned because of the use of the informant’s testimony about Thompson’s solicitation of the murder of his co-defendant.

Mosk wrote: “This damaging evidence might reasonably convince the jurors that sparing the defendant’s life could well be dangerous to the lives of others, and thus tilt their decision toward the death penalty.”

Times staff writer Jerry Hicks in Orange County contributed to this article.