DECLARATION OF MISTRIAL IN SLAYING OF TODDLER.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

A mistrial has been declared in the case of a Lancaster woman charged with abusing and killing her toddler son after a judge ruled her attorney was unconstitutionally kicking women off the jury.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy-Powell agreed with prosecutors who argued that the defense attorney for Sylvia Rolon was excusing jurors based on their gender.

``The judge granted a mistrial because of the defense's unconstitutional use of peremptory challenges. He was kicking all the women off,'' said Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. ``If one side or the other sees a pattern, either racially motivated or in this case gender-motivated, in order to stack the jury, either side can challenge the other.''

Each side in a trial gets a certain amount of peremptory challenges by which attorneys can exclude candidates from a jury without stating a reason.

Rolon, 43, and Anthony Bill Lopez, 38, are charged in the slaying of 22-month-old Isaac Lopez, who was beaten, poisoned with an over-the-counter antihistamine, suffocated and, after he was dead, burned.

When Kennedy-Powell declared a mistrial Monday in Rolon's case, both defendants were in one trial that would be heard by two separate juries.

Rolon will now be tried be separately, beginning next month. Lopez's trial began this week. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Both are charged with murder with a special allegation of torture, which makes them eligible for death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors have decided not to seek the death penalty.

Rolon's attorney, Edward Murphy, said there was a constitutional basis for every prospective juror that he excused.

``I excused women, but I didn't excuse them because they were women. Several women were left on the jury when they called a mistrial,'' Murphy said. ``The only women excused was when there was another basis for excusing them -- women who had police officers for relatives or who had child abuse in their family. I had independent nongender reasons for excusing each one of them.''

Isaac Lopez's badly burned body was found in April 2003 inside a duffel bag in his father's van parked at a San Gabriel Valley park.

Authorities said the child was killed April 21, 2003, at Rolon's Lancaster condominium and remained there about a day before being taken away by Lopez in his van.

Lopez drove to Bassett in the east San Gabriel Valley to visit a friend. He was found with the body in the van, parked at Bassett Park, on April 23, 2003.

Subsequent investigation by detectives led to Rolon's arrest three days later.

Rolon's six other children, ranging then in age from 13 years to 4 months, were placed in protective custody. Her four oldest children were from other relationships, according to authorities.

The youngest three, including Isaac, were from a relationship with Lopez, who had been living in Des Moines, Iowa, but returned to Lancaster two or three weeks before Isaac was killed.

During the preliminary hearing in June 2004, Los Angeles County deputy medical examiner Louis Pena testified Isaac died from the combined effects of an overdose of Sudafed, multiple injuries and asphyxiation.

He had fourth-degree burns on his face, upper body, arms and shoulders, lower legs and feet, Pena said.

Pena testified he believed the burns occurred after Isaac was dead.

Toxicology tests showed an extremely large amount of Sudafed in the boy's blood, levels ranging from 4.9 to 5.3 units, compared with the typical 0.5 to 0.77 units that would be found in adults, Pena said.

A confidential county auditor-control report obtained by the Daily News faulted social workers for poor oversight, incompetence and numerous policy violations in returning the boy to his parents' care.

Lopez and Rolon had at least a 10-year history with the Department of Children and Family Services, with Lopez being convicted of spousal abuse and physically abusing one of Rolon's sons.

However, a series of policy violations and mistakes -- including a case worker failing to read the family's entire history of child abuse and neglect -- led to Rolon's seven children being returned to her, an internal county audit concluded.

When the family relocated from the Covina area to Lancaster, the Covina-based social worker tried twice to transfer the case to a Department of Children and Family Services office in the Antelope Valley.

Both times, DCFS officials in Lancaster refused to take the case.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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