Jury at Impasse Over Killers’ Fate
A jury deliberating the fate of three people convicted in the slaying of a Yorba Linda teenager told the judge Thursday that they are deadlocked on whether to recommend the death penalty.
Jurors sent a statement to Superior Court Judge Dewey Falcone after spending eight days weighing evidence in the murder of Chad MacDonald, a Brea police informant whose slaying prompted a state law restricting the use of youths in undercover police work.
“It appears that we have an impasse,” the statement said. The jurors did not say whether the stalemate involved all three defendants.
Court was adjourned for the rest of the day because the judge had become ill and gone home. The jury will reassemble this morning at Los Angeles County Superior Court in Norwalk, where the case is being heard.
Defense attorney Richard Leonard said the deadlock offers hope that a judge might declare the penalty phase of the case a mistrial. If so, the three defendants would be spared the death penalty if prosecutors decide against retrying that part of the case.
The same jury last month found defendants Michael Martinez, 21, Florence Noriega, 28, and Jose Ibarra, 19, guilty of beating and strangling MacDonald in March 1998.
The 17-year-old victim’s girlfriend was raped, shot and left for dead.
Falcone is scheduled to decide this morning how to proceed with the case.
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