Murder Suspect Free After 4 Juries Fail to Convict Him

After prosecutors acknowledged that they will not seek a fifth trial, a Pasadena judge Tuesday dismissed the murder, burglary and robbery charges that have hung over Harles E. Hamilton’s head for four years.

Hamilton was accused of murdering David and Bertha Goldman, an elderly Altadena couple, on Dec. 7, 1984. No witnesses testified that they had seen Hamilton at the scene, nor were his fingerprints found there.

In four trials, the latest one ending last Friday, no jury could reach a unanimous decision.

Legal experts said it was rare for a case to be tried four times and even rarer for one to end with four hung juries.

Imprisoned once before for a burglary conviction, Hamilton, 29, was jailed without bail for most of the time of the four trials.

“I don’t feel any animosity or bitterness toward anyone. As far as the prosecution, I could see them trying me two times. But I thought the two added trials were unfair and unjust,” Hamilton said Tuesday after Superior Court Judge Coleman A. Swart made him a free man.

Katherine Anderson, expressing thoughts similar to those of five other jurors interviewed after the most recent trial, said: “The district attorney did not prove that Hamilton was on the (Goldman) premises. I believed Hamilton’s story.”

The latest jury favored acquittal 10 to 2. The first jury voted eight to four to acquit, the second deadlocked at six to six, and the third almost convicted Hamilton with an 11-1 vote.

Defense attorneys said another trial would border “on the inhumane.”

One of the two prosecutors assigned to the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. William E. Holliman, said he still believes that “the evidence shows beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant . . . is responsible for the deaths of two fine individuals.”

David Goldman, 77, was a prominent Pasadena attorney, a local Jewish lay leader and an international vice president of B’nai B’rith’s Anti-Defamation League. Bertha Goldman, 74, was a retired school teacher.

Beaten to Death

They were found beaten to death, bound side by side in their home in a neighborhood near the Altadena Town and Country Club. A claw hammer, a pipe wrench, a roofing hatchet, fireplace tongs and a fireplace poker were the murder weapons, authorities said.

“Because of the brutal nature of the crimes, there’s a tendency on the part of the prosecution to really want to make some human being pay,” defense attorney Rayford Fountain said.

Fountain acknowledged that the day after the murders Hamilton sold some of the gold, silver, jewelry and household items stolen from the Goldmans.

Swart, who presided in each trial except the second, indicated that the prosecution’s case grew stronger with each trial. He said in an interview that there was sufficient evidence in the fourth trial to find Hamilton guilty. But, he said, he understood the trouble a jury would have convicting Hamilton, and to continue the case was unjustified. By Swart’s estimate, the four trials, spanning 105 days, cost the court system $630,000.

‘Four-Year Nightmare’

Prosecutor James E. Rogan told the latest group of jurors that the “crime is a four-year nightmare.”

One week after the murders, the other major suspect, a friend of Hamilton’s, committed suicide when sheriff’s deputies approached on an Altadena street to arrest him. Within days of the suicide, Hamilton signed a confession under what defense lawyers call questionable circumstances. Later, he recanted, blaming his dead friend for the murders.

Prosecutors did not say they believe that Hamilton actually wielded the murder weapons.

The trail led to him after investigators discovered that Hamilton had been selling items stolen from the Goldmans.

“I’m sorry I ever agreed to sell that stolen property,” Hamilton said as he left the Pasadena Courthouse with his arm around his mother.

Attorney Faces Charge

Although his client was freed, the case still is not behind defense attorney Fountain, who was indicted last March on a charge that he tried to persuade a jail house informant to falsify testimony in the case. Fountain denied the charges.

The Goldman family survivors, two of whom testified during the trials, said they could endure no further trials. Robert Chitrin, brother of Bertha Goldman said: “Even if Hamilton had been sentenced to a long term in jail, my sister and brother-in-law are gone forever.”