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A federal court on Friday rejected an appeal by a man sentenced to death for killing four people and seriously injuring several others during a 1980 robbery at a Los Angeles Bob’s Big Boy.

Two customers and nine employees were herded into a walk-in freezer, forced to give up their valuables and ordered to turn around and kneel, facing a wall, before being shot. In this file photo, a Bob's Big Boy sign is seen. (Credit: Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Two customers and nine employees were herded into a walk-in freezer, forced to give up their valuables and ordered to turn around and kneel, facing a wall, before being shot. In this file photo, a Bob’s Big Boy sign is seen. (Credit: Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Ricardo Rene Sanders, convicted of four first-degree murders, challenged his conviction and sentence on various grounds. His key contention was that eye witnesses lied during his 1982 trial.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Sanders’ challenges, deciding that he had failed to prove the witnesses lied or that the prosecutor knowingly put on false testimony.

The deadly robbery occurred about 2 a.m. on Dec. 14 at the Bob’s Big Boy on La Cienega Boulevard. Sanders and an accomplice, Franklin Freeman Jr., forced their way into the restaurant just as it was closing, the court said.

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