Sentences for 4 Asian Boyz Will Stand

Four members of the notorious Asian Boyz gang officially beat the death penalty Wednesday as prosecutors announced they will not retry the men, but instead accept a penalty of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The men were convicted in March for their roles in seven slayings in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys in 1995, but jurors could not agree whether the four deserved to be executed or should live the rest of their lives in prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp declared a mistrial on the penalty phase of the trial last month, giving prosecutors the option of trying for death again.

“We don’t believe another jury would reach a unanimous decision,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird said. “Primarily, all of the jurors were swayed by the defendants’ age. They just felt the defendants were too young to sentence to death.”

Their ages ranged from 18 to 22 at the time of the crimes.

Jurors had split evenly in the case of two defendants, deadlocked in favor of life in prison without parole for a third and deadlocked in favor of death for a fourth, the man police have identified as the gang’s leader.

Seven defense lawyers fiercely fought to save their clients’ lives, attacking the credibility of the state’s key witnesses--gang accomplices--and testing a “killing fields” defense.

Defense attorney Jack Stone argued that Roatha Buth suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder from living through the bloody Pol Pot regime in Cambodia in the 1970s as a child. Medical experts testified that Buth has the disorder and one even said it rendered him unable to appreciate the repercussions of his murderous acts.

After the mistrial was declared, Stone said jurors told him the horrors Buth’s mother and sister recounted on the stand did touch them, but they didn’t think it meant he didn’t know what he was doing. They split 6 to 6 on the death question for Buth.

Baird said those jurors who held out for the death penalty said they thought the sheer number of killings warranted a death sentence.

Police accused the gang of 13 slayings and dozens of attempted slayings over a one-year period, but not all were presented to the jury. A grand jury indicted six defendants variously in seven murders and 18 attempted murders.

After a four-month trial, a Van Nuys jury hung on one shooting, which claimed one life, but convicted each of the defendants for at least one murder and a number of attempted murders.

Only Buth, 26; Bunthoeun Roeung, 22; Son Thanh Bui, 22; and Sothi Menh, 24, were eligible for death. They are scheduled to be sentenced next month.

The other defendants, David Evangalista, 24; Kimorn Nuth, 21; and Ky Tony Ngo, 23, have already been sentenced to life in prison.

The trial was marked by the murder in San Jose of the key witness’ father--a shooting police say was carried out in retaliation for the son’s testimony at trial.