Man Convicted of Slaying Despite Lack of Autopsy : Jurisprudence: Victim, 83, died of complications from broken hip suffered when he was robbed. Family’s ban on coroner examination was tough challenge for prosecution.

For Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Latin, it was one of the toughest challenges of his career.

An 83-year-old man had died, two months after his hip was broken during a strong-arm robbery on a downtown sidewalk. The retired pharmacist’s family objected to an autopsy on religious grounds, and none was ever performed.

Then, a few weeks later, in something of a fluke, a young man was arrested after trying to use one of the victim’s stolen credit cards.

Latin’s job: To prove--despite the lack of post-mortem evidence tying the death of Paul Reznek to the attack--that Reginald Edwards, 26, was guilty of murder.

“I was scared,” the 31-year-old prosecutor said Thursday. “Although I felt the guy was guilty, I felt it would be hard to convince a jury.”

But convince a jury he did, and on July 29, if the judge upholds the jury’s findings of special circumstances in the murder, Edwards will be sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

“I don’t think there had ever been a case quite like this before,” Latin said. “There have been (murder) convictions without a body, but I think this is the first time there has been a conviction where there’s a body but no autopsy.”

Police say Reznek, who worked as a pharmacist in Maryland for 50 years before moving to Mar Vista about four years ago to live with his daughter, Dorothy Reznek, was attacked outside a downtown check-cashing office on Dec. 12, 1989.

Officers say the assailant grabbed him from behind, threw him to the ground and took a wallet containing cash, travelers checks and credit cards that Reznek was carrying in a pants pocket.

The attacker fled on foot. Reznek was taken to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, where doctors found that his left hip had been broken in his fall to the pavement.

Latin said that 10 days later, after surgery to repair the hip, the elderly man developed respiratory problems that eventually led to pneumonia.

On Feb. 14, 1990, Paul Reznek died of cardiopulmonary arrest and other complications that doctors said were directly connected to the attack.

“The police still couldn’t find who did it,” Latin said. “It was a wild goose chase. But then, a couple of weeks later, American Express called to say someone had tried to use one of his credit cards on the same day as the robbery.

“The guy apparently forged Reznek’s name,” Latin said. “But then, when the guy didn’t have the right ID, he kind of panicked, and wrote another name down before he ran off. The name was Reginald Edwards--he was the guy.”

Police quickly determined that Edwards was already in custody, being held on an unrelated robbery for which he had been arrested three days after the attack on the elderly pharmacist. Records show that at the time of the Reznek attack, Edwards had been living at the Yorkshire Hotel, a halfway house for prison parolees.

On March 15, 1990, Edwards was charged with Reznek’s murder and robbery, with the special circumstance of a murder committed during a robbery.

Upon entering the case as chief prosecutor, Latin learned that the victim had been buried without an autopsy.

Initially, Deputy Los Angeles County Counsel Richard Townsend had opposed the family’s objections to a post-mortem examination, arguing an autopsy was necessary because authorities were “not prepared to gamble and throw away a felony case.”

The victim’s children countered that doctors had clearly established a tie between the death and the Dec. 12 attack. They said the legal proceedings had already prevented them from burying the body within 24 hours, in accordance with Jewish custom, and they said an autopsy would further violate the customs of their faith by desecrating the body.

The prosecutors and the coroner’s office eventually agreed to honor the family’s wishes, and the undisturbed body was flown to Maryland and buried there.

Edwards’ trial began June 18 in the courtroom of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard Neidorf.

Complicating his prosecutorial efforts, Latin, said, was the fact that Reznek had been suffering from “a plethora” of other medical problems at the time he was attacked.

But the deputy district attorney said he was able to present the testimony of doctors who were unanimous in their opinion that the death had resulted directly from the attack.

He said jurors later told him they were convinced by the doctors and by his arguments that under the law, even though Reznek was already weakened by disease, it was the injuries from the attack, that, “in their natural and continuous sequence,” led to the pharmacist’s death.

Edwards chose to represent himself during the trial.

Ray G. Clark, who served as Edwards’ advisory counsel, said Thursday that he disagreed with the defendant’s decision to represent himself.

“I don’t know why he did it,” Clark said. “He didn’t have the wherewithal to argue such a sophisticated issue of causation. . . .

“But the evidence was fairly strong,” the lawyer said. “I don’t know that having a lawyer represent him would have made a difference in the outcome.”

Edwards could not be reached for comment on Thursday.