Penn Trial Judge Assigned to Retrial of Defendant in Troiani Murder Case

Superior Court Judge Morgan Lester will preside over the retrial of Carlo Troiani murder co-defendant Kevin Watkins, whose first trial ended in a jury deadlock.

The retrial is expected to begin Sept. 26.

Lester takes over the celebrated, 4-year-old case from Superior Court Judge Gilbert Nares, who has been promoted to the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal.

Lester is perhaps best known for presiding in 1987 over the second trial of Sagon Penn, who was acquitted in the March, 1985, slaying of San Diego Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of Police Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian ride-along Sarah Pina-Ruiz.

After the second trial, which freed Penn, Lester lambasted the San Diego Police Department for attempting to cover up the beating of Penn, who was found by a jury to be acting in self-defense when he shot the three.

On Wednesday, Superior Court Judge Anthony Joseph, who supervises the Superior Court in Vista, assigned Lester to preside over the first-degree murder trial of Watkins, the only one of five former Marines to maintain his innocence in the August, 1984, murder of Marine Staff Sgt. Carlo Troiani in Oceanside.

A jury in Nares’ courtroom convicted Laura Troiani of first-degree murder in her husband’s death and sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The four other co-defendants pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 25 years to life, to life in prison without parole.

Watkins’ attorney, Brad Patton, on Wednesday successfully exercised a peremptory challenge to excuse Superior Court Judge Franklin Mitchell from presiding over the retrial, which will be conducted in Ventura County because of the publicity that surrounded the case in North San Diego County.

Patton did not say why he didn’t want Mitchell, who was Joseph’s first choice, to preside over the trial.

Watkins’ first trial ended with a hung jury after he took the stand in his own defense and testified that he was an unwitting partner to the crime and forced at gunpoint to participate in the conspiracy to kill Troiani so that his wife could collect his $95,000 life insurance policy.