Arraignment Ploy Is Charged in Razo Case

An attorney for Jose Luis Razo, the former Harvard University student who confessed to a string of armed robberies, charged Thursday that La Habra police officers delayed his arraignment in July of 1987 so that he would keep talking to authorities before he obtained a lawyer.

“They intentionally delayed it to get him to speak,” said John D. Barnett, Razo’s court-appointed attorney, on the second day of pretrial motions in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

The motions are expected to continue through next week, with jury selection tentatively scheduled for May 1.

Razo, now 22, emerged from a modest La Habra neighborhood to become a standout athlete and student at Servite High School in Anaheim and a recognized youth leader in the community. He was recruited by dozens of universities before enrolling at Harvard in 1985.

Confessed to Robberies

Two years later, however, he confessed to police and local newspapers that he had committed more than a dozen holdups in Orange and Los Angeles counties--along with one in Florida--during breaks from school.

Barnett is hoping that testimony during pretrial motions will persuade Superior Court Judge Jean Rheinheimer to quash some or all of Razo’s confessions to police on the grounds that they were obtained through what he called “constitutionally deficient” means.

On Thursday, Barnett tried to establish that Razo’s first court appearance after his arrest July 6 was delayed a day so that Costa Mesa and Whittier police could interview him before he was assigned a lawyer.

La Habra Police Officer Michael Moore testified that he filed a complaint against Razo in Municipal Court in Fullerton on July 8 and assumed that Razo would be arraigned that day.

Moore’s partner, Detective Robert Wyse, testified that he also believed that Razo would be arraigned that day, and he told other police agencies that they should interview him while he was talking and before he got an attorney.

But at Razo’s preliminary hearing in 1987, Costa Mesa Police Detective Edmund Zuorski testified that Wyse called him on July 8 and told him that Razo would be arraigned July 9.

Razo was taken to court on July 8, but he was not arraigned. Instead, he was taken back to Orange County Jail, where he was interviewed that night by Santa Ana and Costa Mesa police. One of the 10 Orange County robberies with which he is charged occurred in Costa Mesa.

Wyse said in court Thursday that until recently, he believed that Razo was arraigned July 8.

Says Police Lied

Barnett said the discrepancy shows that Wyse, and possibly Moore, are lying and that the confessions they obtained from Razo should be ruled invalid.

“They can’t be believed,” Barnett said, adding that the discrepancy casts doubts on the officers’ assertion that they obtained the confessions lawfully.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ravi Mehta disputed Barnett’s claim.

“I don’t think Wyse is lying,” Mehta said. Of the discrepancy between Wyse’s testimony Thursday and Zuorski’s in 1987, Mehta said, “That’s a clarification I’m going to have to get from Zuorski,” who is scheduled to testify next week.

Mehta said he had no idea why Razo did not appear in court on July 8 and get an attorney.

“What happened at the clerk’s office, nobody has a reason for it,” he said. “I know for a fact that, having heard the testimony and having spoken with the officers, they did not delay the arraignment.”