Judge Lance Ito Criticized in Opinion Overturning Murder Conviction
Judge Lance Ito, who presided over the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, was criticized Monday in a California Supreme Court opinion for actions he took while he was a prosecutor.
The court overturned a death sentence for inmate Adam Miranda in the murder of Gary Black because of failures by Ito and two other prosecutors. The court determined that the prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence in a second killing used against Miranda in the penalty phase of his trial, the San Jose Mercury News reports.
Miranda later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the second case. The California Supreme Court ruling overturns the second conviction and the death penalty in the Black case.
A key witness testified in the death penalty phase of the Black trial that he saw Miranda commit the second murder. But an inmate had written a letter saying the key witness had himself confessed to that murder. The confession letter was placed in Miranda’s file but its contents were not disclosed to Miranda’s lawyers.
Ito had testified he remembers seeing the letter but he doesn’t know why it wasn’t disclosed. He said he usually went over evidence page by page with defense lawyers to make sure they had everything.
Miranda’s appellate lawyer was George Hedges, the Los Angeles Times reports. “The Miranda case represents yet another indictment of the death penalty,” he told the Times. “We have been through a 20-year struggle to locate evidence the D.A.’s office intentionally withheld that showed our client did not commit the murder that placed him on death row 26 years ago.”
