Trial Will Reopen Question of Sentence for Officer’s Killer

On an afternoon 17 years ago, decorated LAPD Officer Paul Verna pulled over a car in Lake View Terrace that had run a stop sign. As Verna approached, someone inside drew a gun and fired. The 35-year-old Medal of Valor winner was killed.

Questions surrounding the slaying are being raised again this week in San Fernando Superior Court, with the retrial of Kenneth Earl Gay, one of the two men convicted of the 1983 murder.

Gay’s guilt is not at issue. The California Supreme Court in 1998 affirmed his first-degree murder conviction. But the justices overturned his death penalty sentence on the grounds that his attorney during the penalty phase of the trial did not do an adequate job.

So a San Fernando jury is being asked to decide again what Gay’s punishment should be: life in prison without the possibility of parole, or death.

During opening statements Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys presented contradicting scenarios of Verna’s death.

Deputy Public Defender Mark Zuckman said he will call actor Ed Asner, among others, to testify that Gay has much to contribute to society. While in prison, Gay wrote a screenplay that won an award given by the Writer’s Workshop, an affiliate of the American Film Institute.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence Morrison called Gay a “vicious, sadistic” man with a violent past, which included beating up an ex-girlfriend, firebombing the house of another and pistol-whipping robbery victims. Morrison told the jury that on June 2, 1983, Gay took a gun from Raynard Cummings after Cummings fired the first shot at Verna.

“That ex-convict on parole stood over [Verna] and fired again and again as Paul Verna lay on the ground dying,” Morrison said, pointing to Gay, who appeared in court in a navy pinstripe suit. “The proper punishment for this defendant . . . is the punishment of death.”

Deputy Public Defender Kenneth Lezin said it was Cummings--now on death row--who fired all the shots.

“We believe the evidence in this case will clearly show that Kenny Gay could not have and did not shoot Officer Paul Verna,” Lezin said.

Last week, Gay’s defense was dealt a blow when Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge L. Jeffrey Wiatt ruled that Cummings’ alleged confessions were irrelevant.

Cummings allegedly confessed to several people, including a sheriff’s deputy, that he fired all six bullets at Verna. But prosecutors argued that the statements were braggadocio.

Several witnesses will testify that they saw a medium- or dark-skinned black man fire at Verna, Lezin said. The description fits Cummings but does not fit Gay, Lezin said, a very light-skinned black man.

After the defense made its opening remarks, Wiatt reiterated his ruling that guilt is not relevant, only punishment. He told jurors to disregard anything the defense had said that would challenge Gay’s first-degree murder conviction, declaring that a previous jury had already found him guilty.

In the courtroom Monday, Verna’s widow, Sandy, and his son, Bryce, who is an LAPD officer, declined to comment.