Mercury News: Laurie Houts cold case: Appellate court overturns double-jeopardy dismissal of murder charge

SAN JOSE — An appellate court has overturned a South Bay judge’s double-jeopardy ruling and is allowing a third murder case against John Kevin Woodward to proceed in the 1992 killing of Laurie Houts, nearly 30 years after Woodward twice avoided conviction by deadlocked juries.

A three-judge panel from the Sixth District Court of Appeal overruled Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Shella Deen in a decision released Thursday. Deen had ruled last August that the 1996 dismissal of murder charges against Woodward — following two mistrials — meant another trial would violate his constitutional right against double jeopardy.

The appellate ruling, authored by Justice Allison Danner, stated a trial-court judge’s 1996 minute order that mentioned “insufficiency of the evidence” — and was heavily relied on by Deen and Woodward — was not definitive enough to indicate the judge meant to bar any future retrial.