Stalker Jury Must Start Over : Judge Dismisses Man Who Dozed in Deliberations

Jury deliberations in the Night Stalker case had to begin anew Friday afternoon after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge dismissed a juror who had fallen asleep twice this week during deliberations.

The jury, which has been deliberating since July 26, now must start from scratch because an alternate juror has joined the panel.

The dismissed juror fell asleep Tuesday just before lunch and then again shortly after lunch Wednesday, the jury foreman told Judge Michael A. Tynan and lawyers in the serial-murder case.

The foreman told the judge that when he noticed the juror sleeping on Tuesday, he called out to the man by name. But the juror did not respond. Four or five minutes later, according to the foreman, the juror was awakened by the sound of his own snoring.

‘I Was Just Reading’

Then the juror denied having been asleep. “Oh, I was just reading,” the foreman quoted the juror as saying.

“He didn’t look like he was reading,” the foreman said. The foreman added that the sleepy juror’s comments during deliberations have been “a little off the wall,” often having little to do with the topic of discussion.

The foreman said he has tried to bring the juror into the discussions, but with little success. And he characterized the juror as being the “least responsive” member of the group.

Late Thursday, the foreman sent a note to Tynan, reporting the problem.

By that point, another juror had already sent a note to Tynan--while the lawyers were delivering their closing arguments in late July--about the sleepy juror. After a private discussion then between the judge and the lawyers, Tynan addressed the jury as a group, urging them to pay attention.

Tynan said Friday that as he delivered that July address, he looked directly at the sleepy juror.

Defense Plea

Ray G. Clark, one of the lawyers for defendant Richard Ramirez, urged the judge Friday not to dismiss the juror, saying that having one’s eyes closed did not necessarily mean that one’s mind was asleep.

But lead prosecutor Phil Halpin told Tynan that jurors seem to be saying to the court that there was “some interference here” with the deliberations.

Tynan agreed with Halpin, noting that he also has observed the juror’s head nodding during the final days of the trial, which began Jan. 30. “I’m disappointed but not surprised,” Tynan said.

He then excused the juror and ordered him not to discuss the case or the jury’s deliberations.

Ramirez, 29, stands accused of 13 murders and 30 other felonies stemming from a rampage of mostly nighttime residential burglaries throughout Los Angeles County in the spring and summer of 1985.