The Region - News from Feb. 26, 1986

The murder conviction of Theodore Champion, 30, was reversed by the 2nd District Court of Appeal on grounds that prosecutors improperly excluded four of five blacks from his jury. Champion, who is black, was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison after he was convicted of the fatal shooting of Kathleen Louise Dzievit, 29, outside her Hollywood home four years ago. Champion’s attorneys had sought a mistrial on grounds that prosecutors had used four of eight peremptory challenges to exclude black jurors, but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ricardo A. Torres dismissed the motion, noting that one black had been seated. In ordering a retrial, the state appellate panel said Champion had been denied his right to a jury drawn from a representative cross-section of his community.