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"Suspect plays ?Dating Game? video in murder trial"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the headline of this new AP article that seems to be a fitting macabre the day after Valentine's Day. Here is how the piece starts: A convicted rapist who could face the death penalty in five alleged serial killings from the 1970s presented "The Dating Game" defense Tuesday during a surreal court session in which he questioned himself on the witness stand. Rodney James Alcala, 66, who is acting as his own lawyer, played a clip from an episode of the game show that he won in September 1978 in an attempt to prove his innocence in one of the killings. Alcala told jurors they could see a flash of two gold ball earrings in his double-pierced left ear as he gives the game show's signoff salute.  Prosecutors believe a pair of gold ball earrings found in a red pouch in a Seattle storage locker rented by Alcala belonged to the youngest of the alleged victims, 12-year-old Robin Samsoe of Huntington Beach, in Orange County...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).