Hearing Set to Review Inmate’s Murder Conviction

A Superior Court judge has set Oct. 6 for a hearing on contentions by the district attorney’s office that it is too late for a Southeast Los Angeles man to obtain judicial relief on his 1983 first-degree murder conviction.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eleanor E. Barrett told Judge Mary Ann Murphy that a motion contending that Kenneth N. Tillman has been improperly imprisoned for 12 years should be rejected because it lacks “timeliness.”

But USC law professor Dennis E. Curtis, one of Tillman’s attorneys, said the defense could rebut that argument at the October hearing.

Tillman’s lawyers contend that his conviction should be reversed because prosecutors failed to tell a jury that their key witness--a jailhouse informant named Michael Dawson--got a special deal in return for his testimony. Tillman, serving a 25-years-to-life term, maintains that he did not murder Orlando Olden, who owed him a small amount of money.

The defense brief states that the Los Angeles Police Department “furnished Dawson with substantial benefits specifically to induce him to testify,” including providing him with cash and lodging and recommending lenient treatment in criminal cases pending against him.