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SANTA ANA – Serial killer and jailhouse lawyer Rodney Alcala bungled the defense of his death penalty murder trial last year when, among other things, he put on no evidence to refute testimony that he murdered four women in Los Angeles.

Note From Me: That says much!

While acting as his own attorney, Alcala also won no points with his Orange County jury when he brutally cross-examined the mother of a fifth murder victim – a 12-year-old Huntington Beach girl – and played Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant” during his summation.

Serial-murder suspect Rodney Alcala, displays gold earrings during his opening statements that he said are similar to the earrings in question in the Robin Samsoe case in this 2010 file photo.

FILE: MICHAEL GOULDING, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

SLIDE SHOW: Prosecutor worries Alcala might have killed others

 

It took his jury less than an hour to condemn him to death for the five sexual assault and torture slayings in the 1970s.

Alcala, who is now 67, did not limit his self-taught so-called legal skills to the criminal courtroom, The Orange County Register has learned.

It turns out that during his time in Orange County Jail awaiting his three headline-making trials (his first two convictions were reversed on appeal), Alcala busied himself filing more than two dozen civil claims and/or lawsuits for money.

This has made me so angry. The fact that we allow serial killers to abuse the legal system the way that they do.

In those legal actions, mostly presented in neat, cursive handwriting, Alcala alleged a litany of perceived slights by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, a number of deputies, and the county’s Health Care Agency.

Alcala claimed that he was occasionally denied television in the jail dayroom, denied access to his subscription to Playboy magazine, and that he did not get two candy bars one Thanksgiving when other inmates were given candy bars.

He filed claims with the Orange County Clerk of the Board and in Superior Court that alleged he was denied his rights when he had to pay for his own eye exams and his own root canal, that jail deputies lost his civilian clothes and failed to provide him with “climatically suitable clothing adequate for seasonal comfort and protection” because he was too cold at night.

But the kicker was a claim for monetary damages that alleged he was “negligently and carelessly treated” by a jail doctor for his “acute tinea unguium infection,” or toe-nail fungus.

“I suffered the detriment of an ineffective treatment that made the infection more resistant to treatment, and that allowed the infection to spread,” Alcala wrote in June 2006.

In all, Alcala filed 26 claims against the county for damages while he was incarcerated in the Orange County Jail, according to Howard Sutter, a spokesman for the county.

Most of the filings were initiated after 2006, when Alcala began insisting in Superior Court that he should be allowed to act as his own attorney in his murder trial.

There have been other jail inmates who have filed a large number of claims against the county in the past, Sutter said, but few have been as litigious as Alcala.

“I would say he is at the high end of the scale,” Sutter said.

Senior Deputy County Counsel Laurie A. Shade, whose office reviews all claims filed against the county, put it this way: “He’s filed so many claims, it is kind of hard to keep track of them all.”

Alcala has been as unsuccessful in his civil cases as he was in his criminal case.

Nearly all have been denied, Sutter said.

Orange County Risk Management did settle one case with Alcala in 2009, for $72.03 for losing some of his clothes, and another case in 2005, for $21, for some lost magazine and personal items, Sutter said.

And two recent cases are deemed still pending.

In one of those filings, Alcala wants $250 for personal injury he says suffered when a jailer yanked him away from a confrontation with another inmate, who had spit on him.

Alcala claimed that all deputies knew he was a “total separation inmate,” yet allowed the other inmate to come in close contact with him while he has chained and handcuffed.

“My face was splattered with the assaulter’s vile spit,” Alcala said. “My forehead received a red welt, and I was prohibited from pressing charges against my assailant.”

You killed people! You deserve So much more than just being spat on!

In the second case, Alcala seeks $452 for the loss of his use of plastic scissors, which he claimed were confiscated by jailers even though he had a court order to possess them to prepare his defense in the murder case. His computation for damages in that case includes $2.50 for the scissors and $5 per day for 65.4 days of being denied the use of the scissors.

Alcala usually estimated his loss in each claim by gauging what he called “the value of (his) suffering. He asked for cash in most cases, usually piddly amounts.

For example, he filed one claim for $1.50: the jail commissary price of the two candy bars he did not receive on Thanksgiving Day.

In another filing, Alcala asked for $5, the amount he said was assessed for five welfare packs, which he claimed are given at no cost to inmates.

He also asked in another claim for $3 per day for every day he was not allowed to watch television in the day room, and $3 per day for every day he was denied a newspaper during his dayroom time. He wanted $5 per day for “the detriment of being denied my right to an accessible wash basin/drinking fountain with hot and cold running water…”

But he bumped his estimate of his loss to $10 per day when he filed a claim in 2006 for damages when he was “denied my right to occupy a cell with a polished metal mirror.”

Alcala is now on death row at San Quentin Prison appealing his Orange County conviction for the five murders.

Let’s hope they expedite his sentence! Each case costs tax payer money!