SAN DIEGO : State Court Upholds Slaying Conviction

Roger Sing Ip, convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy in 1989 and sentenced to five years in prison, received a fair trial and a just sentence, a state appeal court has ruled.

Ip, 35, of Spring Valley was convicted in February, 1991, of the July 10, 1989, shooting of Kurt Yokes, a Mission Bay High School freshman, after Ip’s car nearly collided with a car in which Yokes was a passenger. The jury rejected charges of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

A first trial, in 1990, ended with an acquittal on charges of first-degree murder. The first jury deadlocked on second-degree murder, and a mistrial was declared.

Ip, who was born in Hong Kong and was co-owner of a Chinese restaurant in Pacific Beach, claimed on appeal that his second trial was tainted because prosecutors excluded from the jury the three Chinese-Americans in the jury pool.

It is illegal to exclude jurors on the basis of race. But the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had specific reasons to exclude each of the three potential jurors. Each of the three knew extensive details about the case or had formed an opinion about it before the trial began, Judge Charles W. Froehlich said.

Judges Don R. Work and Gilbert Nares joined the opinion.