BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — David Keith Rogers, the former Kern County sheriff’s deputy who murdered a woman and a teen girl in the 1980s, has a hearing Wednesday to set a retrial date to determine if he’ll receive death or life without parole.
Only the penalty phase will be retried — Rogers’ murder convictions remain intact.
His first penalty phase retrial, held in 2023, ended with a jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of him being sentenced to death. The alternative is life without parole.
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Rogers, 79, was previously sentenced to death — but the state Supreme Court in 2019 overturned that sentence after determining a prosecution witness whose testimony was used during the penalty phase falsely testified Rogers sexually assaulted her…