4th Death Penalty Trial Sought for Killer of Family

The district attorney’s office announced Friday that it will seek an unprecedented fourth death penalty trial for Edward Charles III, who murdered his parents and younger brother before setting their bodies on fire in the family’s car.

Deputy Dist. Atty. David Brent said the decision was based on the egregiousness of the 1994 slayings and on a jury’s 11-1 vote in favor of the death penalty in the latest trial, which ended last month.

“We feel it’s the right thing to do,” Brent said. “When you’re that close . . . it becomes a question of justice. I don’t feel at this point that we’ve had justice.”

The request was promptly criticized by defense attorneys, who argued that prosecutors are ignoring the plea of the victims’ own family that Charles not be executed. Furthermore, the defense contended that the crime does not warrant a death penalty and that jurors have sent that message over and over again, said Thomas Goethals, who is representing Charles.

“We’re not conceding that there’s going to be another trial, by any means,” Goethals said following Friday’s court hearing. “This is a case in which the victims’ family [members] have said they don’t want him executed. That seems to me to be a pretty compelling argument that perhaps the appropriate punishment is life without the possibility of parole.”

Judge William R. Froeberg will decide whether to grant a motion for a new trial after hearing arguments from both sides, which are scheduled for next month. If Froeberg denies the request, Charles would most likely be sentenced to life in prison, Brent said.

The murders occurred on a November evening during which the 25-year-old Fullerton mechanic had dined with his family in their posh Sunny Hills home before killing them. The bodies of Edward II, Dolores and Danny Charles were discovered inside a burning car abandoned near a La Mirada school. Edward Charles II was a Hughes Aircraft engineer, and his wife worked as a self-employed typist. The younger son was an aspiring opera singer in his second year at USC.

During the penalty phase, other relatives testified that executing Charles would add more sadness to an already traumatic situation for the family. Some also have said that each new trial is a hardship for the family.

In the first trial, jurors decided that Charles was guilty of murder for stabbing and bludgeoning his father and brother, and strangling his mother. But the jury deadlocked 11 to 1 in favor of recommending the death penalty, according to court records. A jury in the second trial voted to execute Charles, but the decision was later nullified because of jury misconduct.

In the latest trial, jurors deliberated for about two days before voting 11 to 1 in favor of death.

If Froeberg grants a motion for yet another trial, it will mark the first time in Orange County that prosecutors have tried four times to seek a death penalty in the same case.

Such predicaments are becoming more frequent nationwide, legal experts said.

The decision to ask for a new trial, even after several failures, is being debated among legal experts here and elsewhere in the country. On the one hand, Orange County prosecutors such as Christopher Evans argue that there should not be a price on justice, or the system fails.

“There is no better investment of valuable taxpayer money, given the seriousness of the case,” he said.

But balancing the cost of justice against the weight of the case on the victims’ family and the defendant himself isn’t easy, authorities said.

“It’s slow torture from the defendant’s point of view. He’s asking, ‘How many times do they get to roll the dice with my life?’ ” said Laurie Levenson, an associate dean at Loyola Law School. “It seems to me that not only should we question whether we should put the defendant through this again, but we should also question whether it’s worth it to put the [victims’] family through this again.”