Man Again Found Guilty of Murder : Court: Jury disregards witness-stand confession by Sheldon Sanders’ brother that he fired the fatal shot. It was the third trial in the killing.

Despite a witness-stand confession by his brother that he had fired the rifle shot that apparently killed an 18-year-old Compton high school senior in 1985, Sheldon Sanders on Tuesday was found guilty of second-degree murder by a jury in Compton Superior Court.

The jury, which heard testimony from five witnesses placing Sheldon Sanders, 29, at the scene of the crime with a carbine in his hands, deliberated a day and a half before reaching a verdict.

It was Sanders’ third trial in the case. The first trial resulted in a hung jury, the second in a conviction. Sanders had served eight years of a sentence of 17 years to life before he was released in April by a federal appellate court, which reversed the conviction.

After Tuesday’s verdict, Superior Court Judge Gary Hahn immediately remanded Sanders to jail. At a sentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 1, Hahn will direct Sanders to finish his original sentence, prosecution and defense lawyers said. Because of the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime, Sanders is not eligible for probation.

“The system played itself out and withstood the test,” said prosecutor Frank Duarte.

Defense attorney Rowan K. Klein, who had focused on contradictory statements that witnesses had made to police investigators shortly after the shooting on July 11, 1985, said he was stunned by the verdict.

The case was noteworthy in that it was a rare example of a federal court interceding in a state criminal matter, legal experts said.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ordered Sanders’ release in April, found that his lawyer in the second trial had “evidenced a Gargantuan indifference to the interests of his client and clearly prejudiced his client’s defense” by failing to call Sanders’ brother Xavier as a witness.

The brother claimed that he had been prepared to testify in Sheldon’s defense eight years ago but that his brother’s attorney had told him “to leave the court building.”

Xavier finally testified on Nov. 3, saying he had fired a rifle at the Compton home of Norman Gregory after the Centennial High School football player and his brother David had fought with Sheldon and damaged a Sanders family car.

Xavier said he had accompanied Sheldon back to the Gregory house, where he fired one shot at a car in the driveway, then aimed a shot toward the house. Norman Gregory, who was standing behind a security screen in the front door, was struck in the neck and fatally injured.

Clustered around the victim in the doorway were two of his brothers and two friends, all of whom testified that Sheldon had fired the shot. But three of the four, as well as Norman’s sister, who watched from a neighbor’s yard, had told police that it was Xavier who fired the weapon.

Klein suggested in his final argument that the prosecution witnesses, uncertain about who had been the shooter, had cooperated to ensure that a member of the Sanders family was convicted.

Because of the time he has served, Sheldon Sanders could be eligible for parole next year.