Trial Set to Begin in 2 Slayings--6 Years After Arrest of Suspect

What is said to be the oldest pending criminal case in Los Angeles County is finally scheduled to go to trial--six years after the defendant, Virgil Byers, was arrested in two murders.

Byers, a 26-year-old Los Angeles man charged with killing two rival gang members in separate drive-by shootings in the South-Central area, has been held in County Jail without bail since his arrest in August, 1982.

The twists and turns of the case--hearings, legal motions, appeals, at least half a dozen changes in defense attorneys and an alleged threat by the defendant to kill one of his lawyers--have taken up an unprecedented nine pages in the county clerk’s docket book. And officials note that while some cases have remained unsolved longer or have taken longer because the defendant was not apprehended, they know of no other case on the books that has dragged on so long once the defendant was behind bars.

“I’ve been in the business 16 years and have never seen anything like it,” said Joel R. Isaacson, the latest Los Angeles attorney appointed by the court to defend Byers.

12-Year Sentence

During the years the case has meandered through the legal system, Byers subsequently was involved in a jail fight and tried for attempted murder. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison for that offense last year.

Foremost among the reasons for the delay of Byers’ trial in the two slayings has been the defendant’s firing of at least six of his attorneys.

The case was supposed to go to trial in July, 1984, but Byers petitioned the state Court of Appeal to have his six-hour-long jail confession to police suppressed because he purportedly was under the influence of PCP. The appeal was denied, but since then portions of the confession were ruled to have been improperly obtained.

In papers filed to act as counsel for himself in March, 1986, Byers questioned his attorneys’ “inability to represent me in timely fashion without dilly-dallying.” He concluded, “I can represent myself in a better fashion.” But he soon hired a new attorney.

Joel Isaacson, Byers’ present attorney, said his client “denies committing the murders or of having threatened his attorneys.”

However, Isaacson has concerns that the long delays have hurt the defense. “The courts have become much more conservative. And there is now a great deal of prejudice about gangs in the community, which didn’t exist in 1982.”

Byers, who county prosecutor Loren Naiman says is a member of a Crips gang, is accused of killing two rival Bloods on May 3, 1982.

In the first shooting incident, according to police, Cornelius Harris and a friend were sitting in a car in the 4500 block of Pinafore Street when an assailant opened fire from a car. Harris was killed and his friend wounded. Ten minutes later, a few blocks away in the 2600 block of LaSalle Avenue, another drive-by shooting occurred. Victor Powell was fatally gunned down while walking to his car. Two companions suffered leg wounds in the incident.

Three months later, police received a phone call from Byers, who admitted killing the two men, detectives said in court records. “He told police that God had told him to turn himself in.”

However, the defense says that Byers did not commit the murders. “Our response to the confession is that it is unreliable and was taken while he was under the influence of PCP and intoxicated. He was delusional and irrational and knew of the incidents only because he lived in the neighborhood.”

Part of the six-hour confession since has been suppressed by Superior Court Judge Valerie Baker, who found that, at a certain point, Byers exercised his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

Jury selection for the trial is expected to begin in the next several days in Baker’s courtroom.

Isaacson says he doesn’t fear that Byers will fire him at the last minute as he has dumped other attorneys in the past. “I find Byers intelligent, articulate and easy to work with. He is not demanding of anything extraordinary. All he wants is a fair trial.”