Morrison, 19, Pleads Guilty as an Adult to 2 Armed Robberies at 16

A 19-year-old Tarzana man pleaded guilty Wednesday in Van Nuys Superior Court to a 1985 bank holdup and theft of a car at gunpoint.

Michael Scott Morrison, who was 16 at the time the crimes were committed, will be sentenced July 20 by Judge Alan B. Haber on two counts of armed robbery.

Morrison, who remains free on $50,000 bail, faces a minimum of four years and a maximum of seven years in state prison or a California Youth Authority facility.

The charges stem from the January, 1985, robbery of a teller at the Barclay’s Bank branch in Tarzana and from the May, 1985, theft of a car from the parking lot of a Woodland Hills restaurant.

Two other bank-robbery charges against Morrison were dismissed because of insufficient evidence after a preliminary hearing in January in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

Morrison’s accomplice, Michael Berman, 18, of Tarzana, pleaded guilty in Sylmar Juvenile Court to armed robbery in August, 1985, and was sentenced to a California Youth Authority facility.

Officials there can release him at any time, but must free him before his 25th birthday.

Although Berman was prosecuted as a juvenile, a judge ruled in October, 1985, that Morrison should be tried as an adult.

His preliminary hearing was delayed more than a year while the defense unsuccessfully appealed the judge’s ruling.

Defense attorney Roger J. Diamond said Monday that he plans a further appeal of the ruling that placed Morrison’s case in adult court.

Diamond also said he will appeal Haber’s decision in April allowing a bank teller’s identification of Morrison as one of the robbers to be allowed in evidence, even though it was alleged that police violated the youth’s rights.

The defense had argued that the identification should be thrown out because police solved the case through an illegally obtained confession.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert P. Imerman acknowledged that police violated the youth’s rights by continuing to question him after he requested an attorney.

During the interrogation, Morrison admitted the Barclay’s robbery.

Police later showed Morrison’s photo to the teller, and she identified him as the robber.

But the judge accepted Imerman’s contention that “seasoned robbery detectives” would have linked Morrison to the crime without the confession because the youth fit the teller’s description and Morrison had just been arrested in another bank robbery.