Trial Ordered in Sandwich Shop Deaths

A San Fernando Municipal Court judge Tuesday ordered a former employee of a Northridge sandwich shop to stand trial for allegedly shooting to death a clerk and the clerk’s best friend during a robbery last summer.

After a one-day preliminary hearing, Judge John C. Gunn ordered James Robinson Jr., 23, of Northridge to appear Jan. 28 in San Fernando Superior Court to be arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder with the special circumstance that the killings took place during the commission of a robbery, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Barshop.

Robinson faces the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors allege that Robinson robbed the Subway sandwich shop at Devonshire Street and Zelzah Avenue of nearly $600 shortly after 1:30 a.m. on June 30. Police said the shop clerk, James White, and his best friend, Brian Berry, both 19, were shot “execution-style” by the robber. Berry, who was not an employee of the shop, had stopped to visit White, whom he had known since the fourth grade.

Friends and associates of Robinson testified Tuesday that he told them on several occasions before the incident that he planned to rob the Subway shop, where he had worked from August to October of 1990. They also testified that Robinson--a part-time student at Cal State Northridge who had complained of financial problems--told them that he had committed the robbery and shot the two men.