After the prosecution announced it was unable to proceed, a murder charge was dismissed today against a man who had served more than 26 years behind bars for his mother's March 1983 slaying.
“We got the right result. It took a while, but we eventually got it,” said William Genego, one of Bruce Lisker's attorneys. Head Deputy District Attorney Patrick Dixon of the Major Crimes Division told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza that evidence has been “lost” and “destroyed,” and said the prosecution was “unable to proceed to trial.”
The judge granted a motion to dismiss the case and ordered Lisker's bail to be exonerated.
Following the decision, Lisker hugged each of his attorneys -- Genego, Vicki Podberesky and Richard Hirsch.
“This has been a long time coming. This has been in my heart for an awful long time,” Lisker told reporters after the hearing. “This is truth. This is justice.”
Lisker -- who said he was “a little bit” surprised by the announcement --told reporters he plans to go home and perhaps plan a visit to Hawaii, where he has friends.
He had been awaiting a retrial Oct. 16 in connection with his mother's killing.
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In a statement released by the District Attorney's Office, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said, “We remain confident in Mr. Lisker's original conviction in the second-degree murder of his mother, Dorka.”
She noted that personnel from the District Attorney's Office “carefully and thoroughly reviewed currently available admissible evidence.”
“Much of the physical evidence has been destroyed. Some witnesses are deceased given the passage of time,” Gibbons said.
Lisker was convicted in 1985 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 16 years to life in prison for the March 10, 1983, stabbing and beating death of his 66-year-old mother, Dorka, in her Sherman Oaks home, when he was 17 years old.
He was released Aug. 13 on bail from Mule Creek State Prison, near Sacramento, six days after Riverside-based U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips voided his conviction.
Phillips concurred Aug. 7 with a U.S. magistrate judge's opinion that “false evidence” had been used to prosecute Lisker and that he had poor legal representation during his trial.
A Los Angeles Times investigation in 2005 called into question much of the evidence used to convict him.
