James M Brooks

Michael Lee Taylor, a suspected armed robber and jewel thief whose escape from Orange County Jail last year triggered a national manhunt, pleaded innocent Thursday to charges that he planned the daring breakout of five inmates from the jail roof. Taylor, 36, entered innocent pleas to charges of felony escape, kidnap and robbery and was ordered to appear before Municipal Judge James M. Brooks in Santa Ana on July 19 for a preliminary hearing on the escape-related charges.

Jim Eichorn, a homeless man who is challenging Santa Ana's anti-camping ordinance, will have his day in court today after three years of waging a legal battle. Eichorn is a 49-year-old Vietnam veteran and one of 50 homeless people cited with misdemeanor charges for sleeping in the city's Civic Center during the winter of 1993. Eichorn is the first defendant cited under the law to take his case to trial, which begins this morning.

Even if pilot error led to a two-helicopter crash last year in which three people were killed, the driver of a stolen car being pursued by the helicopters still must be tried for murder, a judge ruled Thursday. Vincent William Acosta, now 20, of Anaheim, who led police on a chase through Santa Ana, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, then doubled back north to Anaheim on March 10, 1987, could be sentenced to 45 years in prison if convicted of second-degree murder in the three deaths.

Many voters, by the time they get near the end of long ballots such as the one facing them June 2, often just stop voting. That's too bad because down on the ballot is where the important local races are listed. The problem is that unlike the more visible federal and state races, many voters unfortunately know little if anything about candidates in the local contests. That's the case with the 11 people seeking three judgeships on the June 2 ballot.

Last November, Jose John Lopez found himself in Municipal Court in Santa Ana, Division 203, facing three misdemeanor charges of abusing his live-in girlfriend. Lopez, 22, of Orange, who is poor and was unemployed at the time, said he watched, bewildered, as Municipal Judge Claude E. Whitney worked his way through a stack of case files, devoting less than a minute to each defendant. It seemed like everyone was being shipped off to jail, Lopez recalled.

Tustin businesswoman Margaret Pottenger, the first female director of the Tustin Chamber of Commerce and the first Tustin Woman of the Year, has been named 1990 Woman of Distinction by the Tustin branch of the American Assn. of University Women. In addition to her other activities, she has spent one day a week for the past 30 years as a volunteer for the American Red Cross Assn. and has been president of the Orange County Lung Assn.

A felony cocaine possession charge against former Municipal Court Commissioner Robert K. Tuller Jr. was dismissed Friday after a judge determined that he had gone "far beyond" the requirements of a drug diversion program for first-time offenders. Tuller, in his first public statement since his arrest last May, said he believes that he is now free of a cocaine problem. "The Betty Ford Center saved my life," Tuller said. Deputy Dist. Atty. Carl W. Armbrust told Municipal Judge James M.

Jerry Thomas Pick, an Orange County Jail inmate accused of killing two of his cell mates in separate incidents three months ago, admits kicking one of them, a 71-year-old man suffering from emphysema, Pick's attorney said Tuesday. But Pick's attorney, Milton C. Grimes, claims that Pick kicked the elderly man on the shins and that the blow did not contribute to the man's death. Grimes' comments came after the first day of a preliminary hearing in Santa Ana for the 25-year-old transient.

Deputy Dist. Atty. William W. Bedsworth took the lead in early returns Tuesday night against Harbor Municipal Court Commissioner Robert H. Gallivan in the only Superior Court race in Orange County. Bedsworth led 52% to Gallivan's 48%. In North Municipal Court, Judge Betty L. Elias, the only incumbent forced into a November runoff, took a solid lead in early returns with 56% of the vote to 44% for Santa Ana attorney James A. Bates. Riverside Deputy Dist. Atty. Roger B.

The excitement in the Orange County Municipal Court campaigns was supposed to be generated in North Court, the only place where an incumbent judge is facing a challenger in the Nov. 4 election and the site of two of the county's three Municipal Court races. But it's in Central Municipal Court, where two prosecutors are vying for the seat vacated by Bobby Youngblood, that the campaign jabs have barbed-wire edges. Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. James M.