In 1980, when Larry Roberts was 27 and serving a life sentence at the California Medical Center in Vacaville for killing a high school security guard when he was 17, another individual in the prison was stabbed. The wounded individual picked up the knife and stabbed a guard to death before he died. No other guards witnessed the stabbing, but other incarcerated witnesses testified against Roberts.
Roberts was prosecuted for both killings and sentenced to death in 1983. The California Supreme Court later overturned Roberts’ conviction for the death of the guard but left his death sentence in place.
But last week, the state Attorney General’s office agreed to a judgment accepting U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd’s order granting Roberts a new trial and said it won’t retry him.
Larry Roberts, now 71, is no longer living under a sentence of death.