Judge Lets Bloom Drop Insanity Plea in Triple Slaying

In a bold move, a man switched pleas Tuesday and admitted he was sane when he murdered his family, gambling a possible death sentence against his ability to read the jurors and the judge deciding his fate.

Over the objection of his court-appointed lawyers, Robert M. Bloom Jr., convicted twice of the 1982 triple-murder of his father, stepmother and stepsister, persuaded a judge to let him represent himself in the penalty phase of his trial starting today. Prosecutors warned in Van Nuys Superior Court that he was subjecting himself to possible execution.

“I understand it, but it’s not going to happen,” Bloom responded evenly.

Bloom said he knows his case “very well,” cited a penal code section on the death penalty and attempted to summarize case law on whether he could quote from the Bible in front of a jury.

He also alleged that Deputy Alternate Public Defenders Seymour Applebaum and Tonya Deetz had presented a “stupid, garbage mental defense” and that he would complain about them when he appeals his case.

“That’s what happens when crazy people go to trial,” Deetz said as she walked away from the courtroom after she was dismissed from the case.

“We would have liked to remain as his lawyers,” Applebaum said.

The sanity of the 36-year-old man became a central issue only during the recent retrial of the case.

During his first trial, Bloom testified that his father, Robert Bloom Sr., shot his stepmother, Josephine Lou Bloom, after an argument in which she asked for a divorce. The defendant then shot his father, and somehow his 8-year-old stepsister Sandra Hughes also was killed, he said.

The jury didn’t buy his story, and he was convicted in 1983. After he fired his attorney late in the trial, he asked for the death penalty. The jury complied.

At the time, Bloom was trying “reverse psychology,” according to Charles A. Simpson, uncle of the slain stepmother.

“That was to manipulate, to say . . . only an insane person would do this,” said Simpson, who attended court Tuesday.

“He’s a con artist,” Simpson said of his step-great-nephew. “He’s trying to outfox people.”

In 1997, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Bloom’s conviction and sentence, ruling that his lawyer had mounted an inadequate psychiatric defense. During his retrial this year, his defense attorneys argued that Bloom, who was 18 when he committed the murders, had been severely abused as a child and that he was profoundly mentally ill.

A Van Nuys jury convicted him in November of the first-degree murder of his father and the second-degree murders of his stepmother and stepsister. Then jurors moved on to consider Bloom’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity.

On Tuesday, they declared they were deadlocked on two counts, with nine believing Bloom was sane when he killed his stepmother and stepsister, and three thinking he was insane. Last week, jurors unanimously decided that Bloom was sane when he killed his abusive father.

But rather than wait for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp to declare a mistrial over the two remaining counts--which might have led prosecutors to retry him with new, possibly less sympathetic jurors--Bloom announced he would drop his insanity defense and proceed immediately to the penalty phase of the trial.

Also Tuesday, Schempp declared Bloom “fully competent” to act as his own counsel.

“I think you’re very articulate,” Schempp said to Bloom. “You’re certainly well-versed on the law.” She called the defendant’s actions “very intelligent.”

Bloom, who sometimes raised his hand in court like a polite schoolboy waiting for permission to speak, said he wanted his trial to stay with Schempp, whom he called “lady of the court.” He didn’t explain why he didn’t want a different judge.

Bloom doesn’t like his current jury, he said, and if he had his way he would discharge them.

“This jury is weak. This jury is going to wind up hung,” he said. “I want to pick my own jury.”

But earlier in the day, before the jury’s split votes were announced, Bloom said he needed to know how jurors voted before he could decide whether to drop his insanity defense.

“Just so I can calculate what I’m going to do,” Bloom said, before he changed his plea.