Kenneth Earl Gay’s conviction for killing officer Paul Verna was vacated once and his death penalty sentence was overturned twice.
A man accused of killing a Los Angeles Police Department officer in a brazen, midday Lake View Terrace shooting 40 years ago is on trial once again, with prosecutors alleging an accomplice handed him the gun he used to shoot the officer to death, while his defense lawyer argued the accomplice was the only shooter.
L.A. County Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian described Gay and Cummings as “desperate, violent men” who were on parole at the time of the killing and who feared Verna would discover they were riding in a stolen car tied to their crime spree.Public Defender Monnica Thelen called the theory that Cummings passed Gay the gun “absolutely ridiculous,” arguing there was no time for the handoff to occur based on witness descriptions of the shooting.
But in 2020, the California Supreme Court vacated Gay’s original conviction for Verna’s murder, arguing his attorney at time, Daye Shinn, bungled the case, failing to present evidence to the jury that might have convinced the panel he was innocent. The court also found Shinn lied to Gay in order to secure the case. Shinn was disbarred in 1992 and died in 2006.
George Gascón, the current D.A. who defeated Lacey, took over the case but declined to pursue the death penalty. In their opening statements, prosecutors and the defense squared off over contradictory witness statements about what happened the day of the killing.
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