Alcala Death Sentence Is Upheld by the California Supreme Court

The California Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously upheld the death sentence of Rodney James Alcala, 47, convicted of the murder of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach.

Robin’s body was found in the foothills of Angeles National Forest on July 2, 1979, two days after she was last seen alive on a bicycle near the Huntington Beach Pier.

Alcala, a part-time photographer from Monterey Park, was convicted of the slaying a year later and sentenced to die. But in 1984 he won a new trial when the California Supreme Court ruled that the jury should never have been told about his criminal past during the guilt phase of his trial.

He was convicted for the second time in 1986, and that jury again recommended a death sentence.

When the judge subsequently handed down the sentence in August, 1986, he described Alcala as “vicious and malevolent in every sense of the word.”

Judge Donald A. McCartin in Orange County Superior Court, scoffed at Alcala’s protests of innocence.

“Hogwash,” McCartin said. “He’s as guilty as anybody who has ever come through this department.”