Stalker Jury Told to Resume Deliberations

The judge in the Night Stalker murder trial ruled Wednesday that grieving jurors should renew their deliberations despite the weekend slaying of one member of the panel, prompting an obscene outburst from defendant Richard Ramirez.

“I have an objection,” the shaggy-haired Night Stalker suspect blurted out from behind his black sunglasses. Still slouched in his chair, one arm draped over the back, Ramirez then uttered an obscenity to describe the court proceedings.

Ramirez’s protest came after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael A. Tynan announced his decision to order a resumption of deliberations in the serial murder case.

Not Present

Jurors were not in the courtroom at the time.

Later, outside court, Ray G. Clark, one of Ramirez’s lawyers, said he and his client are concerned by the immediate resumption of deliberations.

“I don’t think the quality of deliberations now, today, would be what it was a week ago. A cloud hangs over the jury now, a sadness,” Clark said.

“The jury may be angry,” he told reporters. “We don’t know.”

Clark had unsuccessfully sought a week’s suspension in the deliberations--”a small price to pay,” he said--to give jurors more time to overcome their grief over the murder of Phyllis Y. Singletary.

After she failed to appear in court Monday morning, police found the 30-year-old Pacific Bell employee Monday afternoon in her Carson apartment with two bullet wounds in her chest. Her boyfriend, James C. Melton, 51, shot himself in a Carson motel Tuesday morning as sheriff’s deputies began closing in. Police said the murder-suicide was the result of a lovers’ quarrel.

Ramirez, Clark told reporters, “is concerned that the jury may not weigh the evidence.”

“In other words, they are hurting right now. And he’s the only target they have,” the attorney said.

Clark said the defense still intends to submit, within a day or two, a motion seeking a mistrial.

During Wednesday’s brief morning court session, Tynan and attorneys for both sides discussed the impact of Singletary’s murder on the jury, publicly weighing several options as a packed courtroom listened raptly.

In the end, Tynan chose to interview jury foreman Felipe Rodgriguez, rather than all members of the jury as he had indicated he might do on Tuesday.

“We can probably continue today,” Rodriguez said.

He added that he had arrived at this opinion after spending about an hour in the jury room with the other 11 jurors, including a woman who had wept and become immobilized after she was chosen randomly on Tuesday as Singletary’s replacement.

“I feel that it is somewhat tranquil,” Rodriguez said, adding that none of the jurors said they felt unable emotionally to carry on.

“Everyone appears to have put it behind them,” he said softly.

“All right. I’m delighted to hear that,” Tynan said, sending Rodriguez back into the jury room.

It was then that Ramirez protested, resorting to an expletive for emphasis.

At that point, Daniel V. Hernandez, Ramirez’s chief defense lawyer, leaped to his feet, putting a hand on his client’s shoulder and asking for a private conference with the judge and Ramirez.

“Not a chance,” Tynan replied sharply.

Hernandez said it was insufficient to have heard from only one juror, albeit the foreman.

“My client is concerned. I think that’s obvious here,” he said.

Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Phil Halpin said he was relieved by the resumption of deliberations.

“We’re back to July 26,” he said, citing the day when deliberations first began after six months of trial.

“I am grateful that we followed the correct path,” Halpin said.

Many of the remaining 11 jurors and eight alternates were clearly upset as they reported to court Tuesday and were sent home by Tynan after a short court session.

By Wednesday morning, most of the jurors and alternates still appeared grim but were no longer distraught.

Tynan said his decision to direct a resumption of deliberations was based not only on assurances from Rodriguez but also on his own observations of the jurors and alternates as they reported to court Wednesday morning.

“They seemed able to carry on with their task,” the judge said, adding that he had been prepared to suspend deliberations for a few days if jurors had seemed “shaky.”

Tynan also said he received a note Wednesday morning from one of the jurors expressing her gratitude for the way he conducted Tuesday’s emotion-laden session.

On Wednesday, Tynan summoned the jurors and alternates and told them the details of the murder-suicide, while stressing that it should have no effect on their deliberations.

“All of us, all of us, have personal problems that impact on our lives,” Tynan said. “Quite obviously, even Phyllis Singletary, it appeared to me, was able to go about her business.”

The somber jurors stared intently at Tynan as he went on.

“No matter how deeply you are affected . . . it must in no way be permitted to influence you in the performance of your duty.

“You are admonished in the strongest possible terms that your decision in this case must be based on the evidence you have received and heard in this courtroom and from no other source,” Tynan said.

“To do otherwise would be a violation of your oath as jurors and a disservice to both the prosecution and the defense, as well as to our system. I am not unaware or unsympathetic to your grief over the death of Ms. Singletary. But we must deal with our grief in our own way,” he said.

The jury on Friday morning had to begin deliberations anew--after 12 1/2 days--because Tynan dismissed a juror who fell asleep twice during deliberations.

California law requires a jury to begin deliberations from scratch any time a juror is replaced by an alternate.

Clark admitted that he was not surprised by Tynan’s ruling.

“The judge is human. I’m human. And I’m influenced by public opinion. The law is supposed to try to take as much out of that as it can. But law is politics. Everything is politics,” he said.

Ramirez, 29, is charged with 13 murders and 30 other felonies, including attempted murder, burglary, rape, sodomy and oral copulation, resulting from a series of nighttime residential burglaries throughout Los Angeles County, mostly in the spring and summer of 1985.

If convicted, he could face the death penalty. He also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in Orange County and in San Francisco.

TRIAL COSTS

Costs in the Night Stalker case from August, 1985, through May, 1989. District Attorney: $743,525 L.A. Municipal Court: $97,679 Marshal: $31,060 Public Defender: $14,652 Sheriff: $579,660 Superior Court: $86,770 TOTAL: $1,553,346 Source: L.A. County Auditor-Controller