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Court upholds conviction of South Los Angeles robber

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A state appeals court panel has upheld a man’s conviction for shooting and wounding two clerks and robbing another clerk at businesses in South Los Angeles.

The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge had violated Jeffrery Berton Miles’ right to present a complete defense during his trial.

Miles was convicted of trying to kill a clerk at a Big Lots store during a June 16, 2015, robbery, and wounding a clerk at a gas station during an attempted robbery on June 17, 2015, along with a June 15, 2015, robbery at another local gas station  in which he pointed a gun at the clerk’s head.

In its 17-page ruling, the appellate court panel noted that forensic and DNA evidence tied Miles to the robbery at the Big Lots store, with the prosecution’s ballistics expert opining that a bullet recovered from the store was fired from a loaded revolver found by police at Miles’ home and that security video and additional eyewitness testimony “further supported appellant’s culpability.”

A day after that robbery, a clerk at an ARCO gas station was shot in the abdomen during an attempted robbery in which no money was taken, the panel noted.

Miles was stopped by police several hours later after rolling through a stop sign in a silver Cadillac SUV with paper license plates that matched the vehicle seen in surveillance video from the two gas stations, according to the justices’ ruling.

All three crime scenes were within a mile of Miles’ residence, according to the ruling.

Miles—found guilty of attempted murder, assault with a firearm, robbery and attempted robbery—is serving a state prison sentence of 66 years and eight months to life, the justices said.

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