Case Voided Against Brothers in 1983 Killing

Citing an unreliable eyewitness and insufficient evidence, a Long Beach judge on Wednesday dismissed murder charges against two brothers who were jailed almost a year ago in connection with a 1983 homicide.

According to court records, the charges against John W. and Richard R. Calhoun were based on accounts by a drug user who ultimately said he could not identify the killers and by John Calhoun’s ex-wife, who said Long Beach detectives coerced her into implicating both men in the death of Ira Newton Jr.

Newton, 33, was killed with a small sawed-off shotgun July 6, 1983, after he was robbed on East 21st Street in Long Beach. Police reopened the old homicide case in October 1998 and eventually arrested the Calhouns, who were teenagers when Newton was killed.

Superior Court Judge James B. Pierce dismissed the case on the brink of trial Wednesday after the prosecutor disclosed credibility problems with her main witness, Donald Mercer, who told police that the Calhouns robbed him and shot Newton.

“I’m glad it’s over. I don’t think they killed anybody,” said Sandra Cason of Carson, the sister of the defendants. “The police officers who investigated the case are either not very good or they had an agenda.”

John Calhoun, 35, of Hanford, Calif. has four felony convictions for robbery and three narcotics violations from the mid-1980s. He has not been convicted of anything since. His 34-year-old brother, Richard, who lives in Long Beach, also has a criminal record, including a 1994 felony conviction for assaulting a police officer with a firearm.

They are scheduled to be released from County Jail today.

The murder case against them began to unravel earlier this week when an investigator for defense attorney Matt Cooper interviewed Mercer about the shooting. Mercer was quoted as saying that he never saw the faces of the men who killed Newton and only assumed the Calhouns were involved because he remembered hearing the voice of John Calhoun’s ex-wife near the crime scene.

Cooper and Deputy Public Defender Elizabeth Warner-Sterkenberg, who represented Richard Calhoun, said a copy of Mercer’s statement was turned over to Deputy Dist. Atty. Marilyn Seymour, who then re-interviewed the witness.

In court Wednesday, Seymour said she doubted Mercer’s credibility and requested that the case be dismissed in the interest of justice. She could not be reached for comment.

Attorneys for the Calhouns said Mercer’s remarks were the latest in a series of conflicting and inaccurate statements he had given to authorities over the years.

When first interviewed by detectives 17 years ago, Mercer said he and Newton were confronted by four men but that he could not identify anyone. The case went cold and the police suspended their investigation.

After the matter was reopened in 1998, Mercer told police that two men and a woman were involved. He identified the woman as Phylis Rogers, John Calhoun’s wife at the time, but not the men. Mercer also said he may have been under the influence of PCP when Newton was shot.

During a third police interview in 1999, Mercer identified the Calhouns and said that Newton was shot in the back, although an autopsy report shows that the blast hit him in the chest.

At an earlier court hearing, Rogers testified that she only answered yes to police questions because detectives threatened to take her children away and send her to prison, where she could serve 25 years to life or get the death penalty.

Although detectives have maintained that their interrogation was proper, Rogers said they never advised her of her constitutional rights to obtain an attorney or to remain silent before the questioning began.