Death Sentence Upheld in 1988 Killing

The state Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence of a second Soviet Army deserter in the robbery and murder of a fellow Estonian immigrant in her San Fernando Valley home.

The unanimous ruling said a Los Angeles Superior Court judge properly allowed evidence of Tauno Waidla’s confession to the July 1988 murder and of the victim’s reported statements that she feared him and his companion, Peter Sakarias.

The court upheld Sakarias’ death sentence March 27, also unanimously. Both rulings sidestepped the main issue raised by defense lawyers: that the defendants’ rights were violated when the prosecutor allegedly presented conflicting versions of the facts at their separate trials.

For example, defense lawyers said, the prosecutor at Waidla’s trial argued that Waidla planned the crime, was the dominant figure and struck the fatal blow. At Sakarias’ subsequent trial, defense lawyers said, the same prosecutor contended that Sakarias was an equal partner and may have struck the fatal blow.

The defense argued that the prosecutor must have presented a false account at one trial or the other and that contradictory versions of the facts were too unreliable to support a death sentence.

Deputy Atty. Gen. Michael Keller, the state lawyer supporting the convictions, argued in court papers that any inconsistency between the trials was “trivial” and that the prosecutor “remained true to his underlying theory of a joint attack.”

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But the court said it could not consider the issue in a direct appeal, which is limited to the record of a single defendant’s trial. As in the Sakarias ruling, the court said Waidla’s claim must be addressed in a separate proceeding, called habeas corpus, in which the records of both trials can be considered and alleged conflicts can be analyzed.

However, the court does not have to grant a hearing in a habeas corpus case and has not decided yet whether to grant one for either Waidla or Sakarias to dismiss their cases. Hearings are required only for direct appeals of death sentences.

The two men were drafted into the Soviet Army, met at a military hospital in East Germany, deserted together in a nighttime escape to West Germany in 1987 and were granted political asylum. They then traveled to the United States and were befriended by Viivi Piirisild and her husband, Avo, both Estonian immigrants active in the Baltic American Freedom League in Los Angeles.

Waidla lived in the couple’s North Hollywood home for about a year but argued with them about money and a car he had been promised, and he was ordered to leave by Viivi Piirisild in May 1988, the court said.

Two months later, desperate for money, he and Sakarias broke into the home and stabbed and bludgeoned Viivi Piirisild to death, using as one of their weapons a hatchet they had stolen from the couple’s mountain cabin, the court said. They took jewelry and a credit card.

They were arrested six weeks later in upstate New York and made separate confessions to police. Waidla recanted his confession on the witness stand.

The court said witnesses’ statements quoting Viivi Piirisild as saying she feared both men were properly allowed as evidence that they lacked permission to enter the home. The justices also upheld evidence of Waidla’s confession, even though he initially refused to talk to officers and asked to see a lawyer.

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A second Los Angeles detective testified he approached Waidla the next day, unaware of the questioning, and that Waidla asked to speak to him, waived his rights and eventually confessed. Waidla gave a conflicting account, but Justice Stanley Mosk said the detective’s testimony, accepted by the trial judge, showed that Waidla had initiated the conversation and therefore was not questioned illegally.

Lawyers in the case did not return telephone calls.