Man Convicted of Murder Not Violent, Attorney Says

Bill Charles Poynor did not lead an exemplary life. He robbed banks, liquor stores and flower shops. But he is no murderer, his attorney argued Tuesday, the first day of the penalty phase of Poynor’s trial.

Poynor, 52, was convicted Aug. 26 of killing a former Fullerton police officer, Robert T. Walsh, in 1995 while the victim worked his route servicing automated teller machines.

Now, a jury deciding whether to sentence Poynor to death heard Robert Goss insist that his client is a “creature of habit”--a lifelong criminal who robbed small businesses the same way each time but who never inflicted physical harm on his victims.

“I am very disappointed and angry about this verdict,” Goss told jurors.

He said that Walsh, 59, had been missing for two days when firefighters discovered his charred body inside a burning Wells Fargo vehicle, and that the homicide was not like the crimes Poynor had committed in his career.

“He robbed convenience stores, liquor stores, flower shops . . .” Goss said, “and his [method] was always the same.”

Beside the first-degree murder charge, the same jury convicted Poynor of several counts of robbery, one count of false imprisonment and a special circumstance that the murder occurred during the commission of a robbery, which means Poynor could get the death sentence.

While the prosecution held that Poynor’s 30-year criminal record culminated in the murder of Walsh, Poynor’s attorney said he would have the jury second-guessing its conviction by the end of the penalty phase.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis Rosenblum said he will call 35 witnesses over the next week, many of whom were victims of Poynor’s 21 felony convictions.

In an attempt to prove that Poynor is capable of violence, Rosenblum told jurors they will hear about a foiled bank robbery that occurred in 1982 in Arizona.

That crime led to a high-speed police chase and a hostage situation that ended when police surrounded a building where Poynor held two men at gunpoint.

Goss, on the other hand, stated that Poynor almost always carried but never fired a gun during his long criminal career.

During the trial, attorneys described the pattern they say Poynor followed in nearly all the robberies he committed.

In most of his crimes, Poynor entered a shop and got the clerk to open the cash register by either asking for change or pretending to buy something. Once the cash drawer was open, he revealed that he was armed and demanded the money. He asked his victims to wait until he was gone and then he fled the scene on foot.

“He had never tried to rob anyone servicing an ATM,” Goss said in court.

Goss told the jury Tuesday that even when surrounded and being fired on by police after a bank robbery in Arizona, Poynor never returned fire although he carried two .38-caliber weapons.