Man With Jail Alibi Cleared in 2nd Killing : Courts: Judge accepts evidence proving Paul Diaz was incarcerated at the time of the 1990 crime.

A San Fernando judge Thursday declared a convicted murderer innocent of a second killing because he was in jail when it happened.

Whether the ruling will help Paul Anthony Diaz overturn the earlier murder conviction as well remains to be seen, Diaz’s lawyers said.

Diaz, 30, could have been sentenced to death for the 1990 slaying of a suspected drug dealer, based on the strong case against him, Deputy Dist. Atty. Darren Levine said. A witness had identified Diaz as the killer and four informants told police investigators that Diaz--already convicted of a prior slaying--had confessed to them that he had done the killing.

But Diaz was in Los Angeles County Jail at the time of the killing and was not released until five days later, according to jail records that Levine submitted Thursday to San Fernando Superior Court Judge Ronald S. Coen.

The judge agreed to a request by Diaz’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender Howard C. Waco, that he not only dismiss the charge but sign a declaration that Diaz was found innocent, a rare action that will erase Diaz’s arrest from police computer records.

Waco said in court the case showed that prosecutors “were out to prosecute, convict and execute an innocent man.”

But after asking the judge to dismiss the murder charge, Levine complained in court that Waco should have notified authorities that his client was in jail at the time Ignacio Larios, 29, was shot to death in Sun Valley.

Levine said outside court that he heard in February that Diaz had told courtroom workers he was in jail at the time of the killing, but, Levine said, it took two months to confirm. Levine said because Diaz did not show up on computerized records, he had trouble determining whether Diaz was in jail when he was alleged to have shot Larios.

Waco said he wanted Diaz to go on trial for the Larios killing so Waco would have an opportunity to discredit Levine’s witnesses, especially Tammie Freeman of Tujunga. Freeman was also the chief witness against Diaz when he stood trial for the 1991 slaying of Glen Scott Gilbert, 21, an alleged drug runner who worked for Freeman. Diaz was convicted and is now serving a 30-year-to-life sentence.

In both murder cases, Freeman, an admitted drug dealer, told police that Diaz had confessed to her.

Waco told the judge that he deliberately kept the jail information to himself because he hoped to show that Freeman would be lying under oath at a second trial. That, he said, would strengthen Diaz’s appeal of the first conviction, because he could then argue that she lied at the first trial too.

“I only wanted to discredit her and get a new trial,” Waco told the judge.

Levine said Waco’s defense strategy wasted hundreds of hours by his office and police investigators.

“There are murderers at large and unsolved crimes” because police and prosecutors could have closed this case earlier this year, Levine said in court.

In response, Waco said: “If anybody should be ashamed, it should be the district attorney’s office. If they had any brains at all, they would have looked in the court file, because all the information is in there.”

State-appointed appellate attorney Daniel D. Mrotek, who is representing Diaz in the appeal of his murder conviction, said he cannot predict whether Thursday’s dismissal will help Diaz, and he declined to discuss whether Diaz would have been better off if the second case had gone to trial.