Court Overturns Conviction In Skid Row Slayings

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a man accused in the notorious Los Angeles Skid Row Stabber slayings.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Tuesday ordered a new trial for Bobby Joe Maxwell, saying his 1984 conviction for the murders of two Los Angeles transients was based largely on the false testimony of an "infamous" jailhouse snitch.

Maxwell was charged with the 1978 and 1979 murders of 10 people in Los Angeles' Skid Row section. A jury convicted him of two of the killings after his cellmate, Sidney Storch, testified that Maxwell confessed to the murders. Maxwell was sentenced to life in prison.

But the federal appeals court said Storch's testimony was unreliable because he was a habitual liar.

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