Prosecutors Seek to Bar Blame Shift by Blake

Los Angeles County prosecutors asked a judge Tuesday to bar actor Robert Blake’s defense lawyer from accusing others, including Christian Brando, of killing the actor’s wife.

Deputy Dist. Attys. Patrick R. Dixon and Shellie L. Samuels also want jurors to visit the Studio City restaurant where Bonny Lee Bakley ate her last meal and see the spot where she was fatally shot, preferably at night.

They even want to bring in a garbage bin like the one that Blake parked behind the night Bakley was killed in his car “to maximize the opportunity of the jury to view objects as they were on the night in question,” according to one motion.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp is set to consider the motions -- and others expected to be filed by the defense -- beginning Feb. 2.

The trial of the 70-year-old actor, best known as the streetwise detective in the 1970s television series “Baretta,” is scheduled to begin Feb. 17. He is charged with killing Bakley after unsuccessfully soliciting two stuntmen to kill her. He faces life in prison without parole if convicted of the capital murder charge.

In their motions, prosecutors argued that “motive and/or opportunity evidence alone” are inadmissible in trying to show that someone other than Blake may have killed his 44-year-old wife May 4, 2001.

From the start, Blake’s attorneys have tried to shift the blame to others, including the hundreds of men, many in prison, whom Bakley allegedly scammed through her lonely-hearts business.

They also have implied that Brando, son of actor Marlon Brando, or a convicted armed robber who worked the area may have killed Bakley.

A woman has said that she overheard Brando, who had dated Bakley, on the telephone talking about putting a bullet through Bakley’s head.

“They never thoroughly investigated either of these individuals,” said Blake’s attorney, Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. “They are afraid that any evidence of what these other individuals did will get their case thrown out of court.”

Prosecutors also asked the judge to limit Mesereau’s examination of key witnesses to bar testimony about their divorces, financial troubles or illegal drug use.