Local News in Brief : Guilty Plea Changed in Transients’ Killings

A 27-year-old transient who earlier pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing six homeless people in Koreatown and Santa Monica has withdrawn those pleas and will stand trial, a Superior Court judge said Friday.

Joseph Danks, 27, had entered his guilty pleas Dec. 2 under an agreement with prosecutors that would have sent him to state prison for life without the possibility of parole.

Danks was to have been sentenced Friday, but instead Judge Raymond Mireles announced that the plea had been quietly withdrawn last week “on agreement of court and counsel.”

The plea was set aside on technical grounds because it was taken before a hearing was held to determine if Danks was mentally competent to stand trial.

His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Larry Rivetz, had raised the question of competency after Danks lunged at him Nov. 17 with a makeshift knife and cut his nose during jury selection. Rivetz was not seriously injured.

After being found competent to stand trial, Danks declined to re-enter his guilty plea.

Danks was arrested in January, 1987, minutes after he allegedly stabbed a man to death in a Wilshire District alley. He told authorities he had attacked transients because he was offended by “dirty, filthy bums.” He added, “I’m a bum, but I’m a clean bum.”

A new trial date will be set Jan. 6.