Opinion ID: 2625875
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Guilt Phase Evidence: Defense

Text: Defendant's attorney in the robbery case, Adolfo Lara, testified that he had advised defendant that, based on the photographic lineups he had seen, there was a misidentification issue in the case. On the morning of the Koll killing, defendant wore dress slacks, a sports coat, and a shirt and pullover sweater to court. Before the lunchtime recess, Lara discussed Prosecutor Haney's plea offer with defendant, but they reached no final decision. Lara suggested to Haney that they wait until the afternoon before determining whether the case would be resolved by plea or trial. He denied, however, telling Haney [his] man wants the noon hour to think it over. After lunch defendant was dressed as before and was not disheveled or perspiring. According to Lara, defendant was not present when prosecutor Haney told Lara of Koll's death. After learning of it from Haney, Lara told defendant privately, outside the courtroom. On the day of the homicide, Joe Ingber, an attorney, was trying a criminal case in the courtroom adjacent to that in which the Koll robbery case was being tried. During the afternoon, Ingber saw a Pasadena police officer, Eugene Gray, confer with another officer, and perhaps another person, at the back of the courtroom. One of the people took a dark motorcycle helmet, with visor, out of a paper bag. The helmet had nothing to do with the case Ingber was trying. Two women who worked in the Pacific Telephone training center testified that on the day of the homicide they went to lunch at a deli across the street from the pharmacy. As they were returning, around 12:20 or 12:30 p.m., a motorcycle sped in front of them. The driver, who one witness said was a White male, was wearing a white helmet with a smoked face shield and a blue windbreaker. Another woman, who worked on Locust Street about a block from the pharmacy, saw a man walk by during the noon hour wearing a blue motorcycle helmet. She told the police she did not think he was Black; he could have been White or Mexican. Pasadena Police Officer Denis Petersen was riding with Officers Krayniak and Gregory Gray when they saw, and then returned to retrieve, the bubble shield and helmet liner. At a previous hearing, Petersen testified that the officers had found a face shield and helmet. Kenneth Carson's prior testimony was read to the jury. On November 3, 1980, around 6:00 p.m., he went to the Pasadena Police Department with Pat Booker (defendant's cohabitant) and another friend. After Booker spent about 30 minutes in the police department building, the three drove to the nearby supermarket where defendant had parked his car. It was not yet fully dark. The doors and trunk of defendant's car were open, and two people were in the backseat. Carson and his companions abandoned their effort to retrieve the car and left. Pat Booker was unable to remember details of the day of the homicide. At a previous hearing, however, she testified that when she came home to the apartment she shared with defendant on that day, before police arrived to execute the search warrant, the apartment was in disarray and someone else had been there. The defense presented Ramesh Kar, a materials scientist, to challenge the paint comparison tests performed by the prosecution expert, Stephan Schliebe. Based on differences in the amounts of zinc, magnesium, silicon and titanium in samples of paint from the bubble shield snaps and the metal post, Kar concluded they were not the same paint. Testifying on his own behalf, defendant denied having either robbed or killed Koll. On the morning of November 3, 1980, he parked his car in the supermarket lot across from the courthouse and attended the morning court session. Just before court recessed, Defense Attorney Lara and Prosecutor Haney retired to the judge's chambers. Lara came out and told defendant the prosecutor had offered a plea bargain. Court then recessed at 11:45 a.m. or noon, and Lara told defendant to meet him at his office at 1:00 p.m. Defendant telephoned his home, then talked with Brother Ed Bryant and Curtis Moore for a few minutes. He went to the supermarket at 12:15 or 12:20 p.m., bought some food and ate it in his car, staying there for 20 or 30 minutes. About 12:45 p.m., he left on foot for Lara's office. After they talked, he went up to the courtroom hallway and waited for court to resume. During the afternoon session, Lara informed him privately that Koll had been killed over the lunch hour. Later, he was asked to take a gunshot residue test and agreed; he did not ask to use the bathroom first. While defendant was in the attorney conference room for the test, Sergeant Lynn Froistad came in with a paper bag, which he handed to Officer Knebel. Knebel took out a bubble shield and pushed it at defendant, asking if it looked familiar. Defendant pushed it away with his left hand. Defendant further testified that prior to November 3 Lara had told him that Koll had identified two or three other people as the robber. Defendant had therefore thought the prosecution had a weak case and had wanted to go to trial for that reason. Defendant testified he bought a motorcycle in April 1980 and gave it to his nephew in August or September of that year. He spray painted the gas tank blue. His helmet was also blue, but he never painted it; it was blue when he bought it. Sometime between June and August 1980, the helmet, with its smoky bubble shield, was stolen from behind defendant's apartment building. Defendant did not remember having a .38-caliber cartridge casing in his car. He did, however, have some such casings, as well as some .38-caliber target shooting rounds; he collected these at the firing range, kept them in a locking ammunition bag, and traded them back to the range for .22-caliber ammunition. Defendant acknowledged owning the small spiral-bound notebook; it was of a type he used in his home darkroom to record color formulas. He never put any of the notebooks in his car, however, and he never wrote the telephone number of the Koll pharmacy in the notebook. On cross-examination, defendant was impeached with three felony convictions: his 1984 conviction for the Koll pharmacy robbery, another robbery conviction in 1971, and an attempted second degree burglary conviction in 1975.