APPEALS COURT REJECTS NEW HEARING IN MURDER CONVICTED KILLER HID OUT 17 YEARS BEFORE HIS ARREST.

Byline: Staff and Wire Services

A former Valyermo ranchhand who hid out in Mexico for 17 years after the shotgun slayings of the ranch owner and the ranch owner's girlfriend is not entitled to another hearing to request a new attorney, a state appellate court has ruled.

The three-justice panel denied Josif Jurcoane's claim that the trial court failed to conduct an adequate inquiry into his complaints against his trial attorney, noting the appellant had written a six-page letter airing his grievances, which was considered by the court.

``When a defendant seeks to discharge his appointed counsel or substitute another attorney and asserts inadequate representation, the trial court must permit the defendant to explain the basis of his contention and to relate specific instances of the attorney's inadequate performance,'' Justice Frances Rothschild wrote in her opinion.

``On the other hand, `When the basis of a defendant's dissatisfaction with counsel is set forth in a letter of sufficient detail, ... a full-blown hearing is not required,''' Rothschild wrote, citing a previous court ruling in the case of California v. Freeman.

Jurcoane was convicted in 2002 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 32 years to life in prison for the July 1984 shooting of retired Lockheed test pilot Lloyd Bryden, Jurcoane's former employer, and Alice McCannel, Bryden's girlfriend.

Bryden and McCannel were found dead the evening of July 4, 1984, near a cherry stand at their Valyermo ranch.

Jurcoane, a Romanian immigrant, was a former ranch employee who had argued with Bryden a month before the killings and had been ordered to move his family off the property. He had argued with McCannel on the day of the slayings.

Jurcoane was arrested by Mexican authorities in April 2001 and turned over to Los Angeles County authorities after prosecutors promised not to seek the death penalty against him.

On a previous appeal by Jurcoane, the appellate court found that the trial court had erred in denying Jurcoane's motion for a new attorney when he was sentenced.

The justices remanded the case back to the trial court, where Jurcoane was given the chance to ``show good cause'' for appointing new counsel.

In this second appeal, the appellate court upheld the lower court's ruling that Jurcoane had failed to ``show good cause'' that would warrant the appointment of new counsel.

During the hearing, Jurcoane submitted a six-page letter, in addition to others, which the court ``read and considered'' before finding that Jurcoane failed to show good cause. The letter, the justices said in declining to remand the case again, ``contained sufficient detail to meet the Freeman test.''

His estranged wife, Susan, who remained in California to raise the couple's three children, invoked the marital testimony privilege during her husband's preliminary hearing so she would not have to testify about a statement he made to her after the shootings.

The couple had not divorced.

Lancaster Superior Court Judge Carol S. Koppel said the marriage was ``moribund'' given the couple's lengthy separation with little to no contact and ordered the woman to testify.

In November 2001, however, a state appeals court struck down the ruling. Jurcoane's daughter testified during the trial that on the day of the shootings, she heard gunshots, saw her father come home in a truck, pack his clothes and then leave. She was not quite 4 years old at the time.

Jurcoane took the stand during his trial and testified that, when the killings occurred, he had been at a bar far from the couple's ranch at Valyermo, a tiny rural community in the foothills bordering the San Gabriel Mountains. He claimed that he fled to Mexico because he was afraid he would be falsely blamed.

But the jurors had already heard the story he told Mexican authorities before his extradition: that someone called ``El Loco'' used Jurcoane's shotgun to kill Bryden and McCannel.

Jurors deliberated about 2 1/2 days before they acquitted Jurcoane of first-degree murder but found him guilty of second-degree murder.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Josif Jurcoane appears at his 2001 arraignment at the Lancaster Courthouse.

Daily News file