Sometimes-Testy Lawyers, Judge Make Progress in Picking Night Stalker Trial Jury

With jury selection entering its fifth and perhaps final month, the start of the so-called Night Stalker trial is approaching amid signs that it could be a highly emotional affair.

Stacks of subpoenas are being readied for hundreds of witnesses who are to testify in Los Angeles Superior Court, starting Jan. 17.

Carpenters have also received orders to enlarge the courtroom’s jury box to accommodate the 24 jurors and alternates still to be picked for the trial, which is expected to last as long as two years. Already, thicker seat cushions are in place.

And tempers all around are getting short, with the opposing lawyers threatening one another with bodily harm--and the judge threatening to hold them in contempt of court. The most heated exchanges occurred during Thanksgiving week as the next to last phase of jury selection was winding down. That phase ended Wednesday.

The clashes prompted Judge Michael A. Tynan to suggest, perhaps facetiously, that co-prosecutor Phil Halpin and defense lawyer Daniel Hernandez consider settling their personal differences in a boxing ring.

Selection Proceeding

But such distractions, and occasional flashes of humor, have not appreciably slowed the business at hand: the disqualification of prospective jurors who appear to have an inherent bias either for or against the death penalty.

In all, 143 Los Angeles County residents will enter the final stage of juror selection, set to begin Dec. 12. From this group will come the 12-member jury, plus 12 alternates, who will decide the fate of murder suspect Richard Ramirez.

Ramirez, a 28-year-old drifter from El Paso, Tex., is charged with murdering 13 Los Angeles County residents in a series of nighttime residential attacks three years ago that also left many others injured. He also faces 30 other felony charges, including robbery, rape and attempted murder.

If convicted, he could be sentenced to the gas chamber at San Quentin.

The initial phase of jury selection began July 21, and 1,581 Los Angeles County residents were considered for the case. By early September, all but about 300 were excused--for health or other reasons, such as having employers who would not pay their salaries for more than a few weeks of jury duty.

California law also requires all prospective jurors in capital cases to declare under oath that, having found a defendant guilty as charged, they would be able to choose--with a clear conscience--one of two options: life without the possibility of parole, or execution. The just-ended death penalty qualification phase of jury selection began Sept. 26.

Taking Keen Interest

Ramirez, who has been held in Central Jail without bail since his Aug. 31, 1985, arrest in East Los Angeles, has appeared to take an increasingly keen interest in the proceedings, often making notes and whispering animatedly with members of his defense team.

The interviewing of prospective jurors is typically unremarkable. But occasionally questions about imposing the death penalty have aroused intense soul-searching and emotional turmoil.

“I suppose I could if I felt--in that I believe in it--I suppose I could,” said one woman as she shifted uneasily in her chair. “I should be able to back up what I believe in, shouldn’t I? I’ve never. . . . “

Judge Tynan interrupted. “Don’t put yourself in a box.”

“I am in a box,” she replied. “Believe me, I’m in a box.”

After further questioning, Halpin and co-prosecutor Alan S. Yochelson sought to have the woman disqualified, but their motion was denied.

Among those excused was a woman who admitted, “I believe in the death penalty, but I just don’t want to be the one to choose that for someone.”

Those still in the running for jury service include a man arrested more than a dozen years ago for suspicion of heroin possession who spent a night in jail before the charges were dismissed.

Another eligible juror is a man convicted of driving while impaired 13 years ago in Van Nuys and who was arrested at a political demonstration as a college student in 1970.

All prospective jurors are admonished not to talk to anyone about their possible role in the trial. In the case of at least one prospective juror, this warning has caused some domestic strife.

As the man told Tynan: “Since I’ve been on jury duty, my wife has been trying to find out the person involved in the case, and I haven’t told her, and our relationship is kind of shaky right now because I’m sticking to what the judge says. And I’m blaming him totally for my marriage.”

Jury selection has gone more quickly than anticipated, largely because Tynan has guided the proceedings with a firm hand. When Hernandez in mid-October asked for a day off so he could attend a parole hearing in behalf of another client, Tynan quickly turned him down. “Remember our agreement, Mr. Hernandez,” he said. “You have no other commitments that are going to take precedence over this case. . . . And don’t give me that hang-dog look.”

Shortly afterward, Hernandez told the judge: “I don’t appreciate the way the court (Tynan) makes faces.”

The sharpest exchanges between Halpin and Hernandez took place Nov. 22, and it prompted Tynan to declare a rare recess.

“This court,” he told them afterward, “is very depressed . . . with the apparent need that Mr. Halpin and Mr. Hernandez have for gratuitous insults and deliberate rudeness, not only to each other but to this court. I’m tired of it. . . . And I recognized the strain that is going on in a case like this and it never ceases to amaze me how neither of you appears to be able to exercise any self control.”

Halpin replied: “I want to thank the court for those gratuitous remarks.”

At another point during this exchange, an exacerbated Halpin said to Tynan: “Do you know how many times this little fellow (Hernandez) has threatened to take me out in the hall? I’m tired of it and I don’t have to put up with it.”

Outside the courtroom later, both Hernandez and Halpin made light of their confrontations.

From the bench, Tynan has advised both men to exercise patience, noting that the trial may last two years. “The macho posturing that I’ve been observing here has no place in a trial of this magnitude, or any trial,” he said, adding ominously:

“I promised myself when I took this job seven years ago not to hold a lawyer in contempt, but I’m right there. I’m sick and tired of it and it is not cute and it is not funny and it is not professional and it is asinine. You guys got problems, personal problems. Settle them outside. Rent a gym. Do whatever you want to do. . . . I don’t want any more juvenile antics in this courtroom. . . . I’m fed up with it. We can’t survive, any of us, as professionals if this continues.”