2nd Jury Finds Man Guilty of 1982 Slaying

For the second time in two decades, a jury on Wednesday found Robert Bloom Jr. guilty in the 1982 murder of his father.

Bloom, now 36, showed no emotion as the verdict was announced Wednesday in the Van Nuys courtroom of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp.

With the finding of first-degree murder, Bloom faces a maximum sentence of 27 years to life in prison. Bloom is also charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of his stepmother and stepsister during the April 22, 1982, rampage, and the jury will continue deliberations on those charges today.

If Bloom is convicted of at least one more murder and is found sane, he faces a possible death penalty.

Prosecutors contend that Bloom, who was 18 at the time, killed his father, Robert Bloom Sr., because the man had been emotionally and physically abusive toward him.

The Sun Valley teenager then shot his stepmother, Josephine Lou Bloom, and his 8-year-old stepsister, Sandra Hughes, because they were witnesses to the crime, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels.

Bloom’s attorney, Deputy Alternate Public Defender Seymour Applebaum, argued that Bloom killed his father after a heated argument and deserves to be found guilty of only voluntary manslaughter.

In his closing argument last week, Applebaum said Bloom was “fully dissociated” when he later shot his stepmother and stepsister, and therefore deserves to be convicted of only involuntary manslaughter for their deaths.

Applebaum also argued that Bloom is “profoundly mentally ill.”

Regardless of the jury’s decision on the other two counts, Bloom will next face a sanity phase, during which he will have the burden of proving whether he was insane at the time of the crime. If he is found to have been sane and is convicted of at least one other murder, then the same jury will decide whether he should receive the death penalty.

Bloom has clashed with his court-appointed lawyers and has repeatedly told the court he intends to represent himself if his trial reaches a penalty phase.

During his first trial in the early 1980s, Bloom testified that his father killed his stepmother after an argument in which she asked for a divorce. He then shot his dad, and somehow his stepsister was also killed, he said.

The original Van Nuys jury didn’t believe him and found him guilty of three counts of first-degree murder. After he fired his lawyer and represented himself during the penalty phase, Bloom asked for the death penalty, and the jury complied.

But in 1997, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction and sentence because of ineffective assistance of counsel--his lawyer had mounted an inadequate psychiatric defense.