Criminal
Jun. 20, 2002
Judge Lets Blake's Bodyguard Keep Counsel
LOS ANGELES - The defense won a major round in the Robert Blake murder case Tuesday when a Los Angeles Superior Court judge allowed the attorney representing Blake's bodyguard and co-defendant to remain on the case.
However, Judge Lloyd Nash postponed until June 27 motions regarding Blake's bail motion because Nash only just received a flurry of motions and responses from both sides.
"Things are breaking our way," Blake's attorney, Harland W. Braun, said after the hearing.
Nash said that attorney Arna H. Zlotnik may remain as the attorney for Blake's bodyguard, Earle Caldwell.
Blake, 68, and Caldwell, 46, are charged in the May 4, 2001, slaying of Blake's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, the mother of Blake's youngest child.
Bakley, 44, was shot to death as she sat in the actor's car on a Studio City street after dining with Blake at a nearby Italian restaurant.
Deputy District Attorneys Patrick Dixon and Gregory Dohi have asked Nash to force Caldwell to give up his attorney, Zlotnik, who is being paid by Blake. They contend that her financial arrangement with Blake constitutes a conflict of interest and could influence her representation of Caldwell.
But Caldwell, who remains free on $1 million bail paid for by Blake, has signed a waiver, claiming he wants Zlotnik to remain as his attorney.
After questioning Caldwell and an attorney appointed to advise him about possible conflicts, Nash allowed Zlotnik to remain on the case.
Caldwell told Nash he understood the possible conflicts and, if he agreed to keep Zlotnik as his attorney, he could not raise those conflicts on appeal.
"That's good enough for me," Nash said. "Ms. Zlotnik, as far as the court is concerned, you can remain as the attorney of record."
Nash told Zlotnik that he had not intended any offense at the last hearing by enlisting attorney Stephen D. Sitkoff to meet with Caldwell when asked to do so by prosecutors.
"I think you're a fine lawyer, and I also respect the way you represent your clients," Nash told Zlotnik.
Nash also advised attorneys to get the preliminary hearing under way. Braun said he needs at least 60 days to wade through evidence. Dixon said that his office would be ready to go by the end of July.
Blake, the former child actor who gained acclaim for his role as a killer in the film version of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" and, later, in the television cop series "Baretta," is charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and two counts of solicitation of murder. He also is charged with committing the murder while lying in wait, a special circumstance for which he could receive life without the possibility of parole.
Prosecutors contend that Blake tried five times to get others to kill his wife and, when he could not get anyone to take him up on the offer, shot her to death himself. People v. Blake, LA040377 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed April 22, 2002).
The district attorney's office has charged Caldwell with one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Prosecutors contend that Blake killed Bakley, a small-time grifter who allegedly preyed on lonely men with promises of sex and nude photographs, because he did not want her to have custody of their toddler daughter, Rosie.
Braun contends that prosecutors included the lying-in-wait allegation to prevent Blake from being freed on bail, which, he said, makes the allegedly dyslexic actor unable to help in his own defense.
In court documents filed Monday, Braun accuses Los Angeles police Detective Ronald Y. Ito of seeking personal publicity in the case. Prosecutors deny the allegation in their response.
The court documents filed by Braun include transcripts of an interview Ito had with a stuntman witness in the case, in which Ito complains that although he worked on the O.J. Simpson case, he did not get television time as did Detectives Tom Lange and Phillip Vannatter. Also included in that transcript are Ito's statements that he brought along a crime writer to the interview.
Anne La Jeunesse
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