Court Denies a New Trial for Killer of 4 Members of Kermit Alexander’s Family

Despite sworn statements by three jurors who said their foreman railroaded them into convicting a suspect in four murders, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge Thursday denied a defense attorney’s motion for a new trial.

“I don’t believe these affidavits,” declared Judge Dion G. Morrow. “I don’t believe them at all.”

In their affidavits, the jurors said they were still debating the guilt or innocence of Darren Charles Williams last December when their foreman signed a guilty verdict and presented it to Morrow.

But in his ruling Thursday, Morrow, who presided at the trial, said he believed that the jurors had in fact resolved Williams’ guilt and were debating a separate question of law reserved for the penalty phase of the trial.

Gang Member

The jury last December convicted Williams, a Los Angeles street gang member, of first-degree murder in the 1984 deaths of a middle-aged woman, her daughter and two grandsons in a South-Central Los Angeles home.

The deaths attracted heavy publicity because the victims were relatives of former UCLA and pro football star Kermit Alexander. Williams was the third of three suspects convicted.

Williams’ attorney, H. Clay Jacke II, earlier this month filed a new trial motion based on affidavits signed by jurors Katherine Tripp, Robert Cole and Margaret Byous, who accused foreman John Porter of misrepresenting them.

“I was shocked and aghast when the foreman indicated to the court that the jury had reached a verdict,” Tripp said in her affidavit.

Three days later, in what they said was an effort to protest Porter’s handling of the matter, Tripp and Cole voted against making a finding that the murders were committed under special circumstances warranting the death penalty or life imprisonment without parole.

Because such findings must be unanimous, Morrow was forced to declare a mistrial in the penalty phase. A new jury to try the penalty phase has yet to be selected.

‘Disruptive Force’

Juror Byous said in her affidavit that “from the beginning” of the trial, Porter “was a disruptive force” who “attempted to rush through the evidence without allowing other jurors to examine and discuss various aspects of the evidence.”

Porter could not be reached for comment.

According to the affidavits and a transcript of the trial, the jurors were debating a question of Williams’ intent when they came back into court to ask Morrow a point of law. He answered it, and the jurors came back an hour later with another question.

Morrow, believing the question pertained to special circumstances and could be dealt with later, asked if a verdict on guilt or innocence had been reached. Porter said it had and presented it. After the clerk read it, the judge asked each juror, as is customary, whether each was in agreement.

“I looked at all 12 of those people, and they all said, ‘Yes,’ every one,” Morrow said Thursday.

In their affidavits, the three dissenting jurors explained that they had not protested at that moment because Morrow had previously told them that once a verdict slip was signed by the foreman, it is “carved in stone.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Sterling Norris, who prosecuted the three murder cases, said in an interview that he “didn’t believe that (reason) for a minute” and characterized the affidavits as “a change of heart” by the jurors, a phenomenon that he said is not unusual.

Morrow agreed, saying, “I think frankly they (the three jurors) are not telling the truth.”