03 April 2010 :

A Los Angeles County jury once again found that Lloyd Earl Jackson, now 52, black, should be put to death for killing Vernita Curtis, 81, and Gladys Ott, 90, during burglaries a week apart in the late summer of 1977. The 1979 death sentence had been thrown out on Aug. 20, 2004 (see) by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie who, citing a “dereliction of duty” by the prosecutor and Jackson’s defense attorney, found that Jackson’s constitutional rights were violated. The judge’s order keeps intact Jackson’s conviction for the fatal beating deaths of Ott and Curtis. Among other things, the judge determined that prosecutors allowed two jailhouse informants to lie to the jury, particularly about the favorable deals they received in exchange for their testimony. That decision was appealed, and in 2008, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the 2004 decision to throw out the death sentence. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Tomson T. Ong hasn’t set a sentencing data jet.