Kraft Lawyers Urge 16 Separate Trials

If Randy Steven Kraft has to face 16 murder charges at a single trial, his lawyers argued to the court Tuesday, the sheer number will prejudice a jury against him.

The defense lawyers said 16 murders lumped together will give jurors an “inescapable inference” that he is guilty and they “will proceed to convict him regardless of the merits or demerits of each count.”

Kraft’s attorneys made the arguments in a 156-page motion to sever Kraft’s trial into 16 separate trials. Lawyers involved consider it perhaps the most significant issue for Superior Court Judge Donald A. McCartin to deal with before the trial begins next month.

James G. Merwin, one of Kraft’s attorneys, said the issue is critical. A severance, he said, “is the only way Randy is going to get a fair trial.”

Kraft, 43, a computer consultant from Long Beach, is accused of more killings than anyone in California history.

He was arrested May 14, 1983, after two California Highway Patrol officers who stopped him for a routine traffic violation found a dead Marine in his car.

While Kraft is charged with the 16 slayings in Orange County, prosecutors have also accused him of 21 other slayings, including six in Oregon and two in Michigan. While Kraft won’t be tried for those 21, prosecutors will use them as evidence.

Because so many killings are involved, the defense estimates that the trial, including jury selection, will take up to two years. Prosecutors argue that it should take no more than a year.

“The prosecution has provided us with a witness list of nearly a thousand people,” Merwin said, defending his two-year estimate. “Just putting those people on, plus our own case--which is substantial--will take that much time.”

The defense makes the trial’s length an issue for two reasons:

Kraft lawyers claim jurors simply cannot absorb that much evidence at a single trial. Merwin argues in his motion that “the facts in this case are so voluminous and so complex that no jury could reasonably be expected to keep them separate and consider each homicide on its merits.”

Kraft lawyers claim that a long trial could eliminate Kraft’s right to a jury of his peers.

“In fact, he will be subjected to a trial by a group from which all but the retired elderly has been excluded,” Merwin argues.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Bryan F. Brown, who will prosecute Kraft, declined Tuesday to comment on the defense motion. He said his office is in the process of filing a response for the court, due next week.

Prosecutors in the past have claimed that Kraft’s case must be put on at a single trial because the evidence of the murders is so related. For example, they argue, one slaying where there is no physical evidence directly linked to Kraft has numerous similarities to another murder in which there is physical evidence that points to Kraft.

Also, numerous prosecutors disagree with Merwin’s argument that the number of victims in the case against Kraft will prejudice the jury against him.

They point to the 1982-1983 William F. Bonin case, in which Bonin was convicted of 10 murders in Los Angeles County and four in Orange County. In the Los Angeles case, Bonin was actually charged with 12 murders but the jury acquitted him of two of them. To prosecutors, that is an argument that volume does not interfere with fairness.

The several issues will be heard by McCartin on June 23. The judge has told attorneys he will hold a Saturday session if necessary to make sure the issue is decided by the end of that week.

The defense’s key witness at that hearing will be Stephen Penrod of the University of Wisconsin, who has written papers on the prejudice against a defendant when charges are grouped together at a single trial.

In the only other major pretrial issue, the defense plans to renew its motion--turned down previously--for a change of venue.

Kraft’s trial, which has been delayed a dozen times because of defense requests for more preparation time, now has a July 21 starting date, which lawyers say should be firm.