Sentencing Orange County

A Santa Ana man who accidentally shot and wounded his 4-year-old daughter while unloading his gun, then fled to his relatives' home in Long Beach, began a three-year prison term Friday for endangering his child. Bartolo Quintana, 29, pleaded guilty Thursday in Orange County Superior Court to a felony charge of child endangerment and four counts of illegally possessing a firearm, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd said.

Orange County prosecutors and public defenders have formed a novel partnership to determine whether prisoners have been wrongly convicted of crimes. As part of the 2-year-old effort, 20 inmates, including rapists and murderers, serving lengthy prison sentences will have their cases reviewed to determine if they were wrongfully convicted in Orange County Superior Court.

The California Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of three convicted killers Thursday, including the killer of an Orange County police officer, but refused to retreat from its long-established policy of giving closer scrutiny to capital cases. Prosecutors had asked the court to apply a less stringent standard when the justices try to determine whether procedural errors made during a trial should lead to the reversal of a death sentence.

Appearing slightly dazed and nervous, former Orange County Treasurer Robert L. Citron reported to his new court-mandated job Monday morning at a nondescript building in a small industrial neighborhood where he will sort requests from jail inmates for deodorant and postage stamps.

Orange County prosecutors and public defenders have formed a novel partnership to determine whether prisoners have been wrongly convicted of crimes. As part of the 2-year-old effort, 20 inmates, including rapists and murderers, serving lengthy prison sentences will have their cases reviewed to determine if they were wrongfully convicted in Orange County Superior Court.

Cynthia Lynn Coffman, who faces the death penalty for one murder, was spared a second death sentence Friday by an Orange County jury that recommended life in prison for the strangulation of a Huntington Beach teen-ager. As the jury's verdict was read, Coffman's attorney victoriously waved his arm in the air, while members of the victim's family sat stunned in the crowded courtroom. Coffman, a 30-year-old former cocktail waitress from St.

Appearing slightly dazed and nervous, former Orange County Treasurer Robert L. Citron reported to his new court-mandated job Monday morning at a nondescript building in a small industrial neighborhood where he will sort requests from jail inmates for deodorant and postage stamps.

The O.J. Simpson double murder trial. * The prison sentences for Laurence Powell and Stacey Koon, who were convicted of violating Rodney King's civil rights. * The lawsuit over the quake-flattened Northridge Meadows apartments, which ended with a $1-million-plus settlement. * The criminal case against Orange County Treasurer Robert L. Citron, who pleaded guilty to six felonies involving fraud and misappropriation of public money in connection with the county's declaration of bankruptcy in 1994.

A priest who was convicted of molesting four altar boys at his Huntington Beach church several years ago has been arrested in New Mexico on suspicion of child molestation, authorities said Wednesday. Andrew Christian Andersen was arrested in Albuquerque, N.M., on suspicion of child molestation, assault and kidnaping, police said. Albuquerque Police Sgt. John Sanchez said Andersen allegedly forced a teen-age boy into his vehicle, assaulted him and attempted to sodomize him.

A Los Angeles couple were ordered to trial Tuesday on murder and conspiracy charges for the slaying of a witness to a 1991 Orange County computer store robbery. William Clinton Clark, 40, and Antoinette Yancey, 26, face a possible death sentence if convicted of killing Ardell Williams last March in Gardena. In addition, Municipal Judge B. Tam Nomoto in Santa Ana ordered Clark to stand trial for a second killing.

Cynthia Lynn Coffman, who faces the death penalty for one murder, was spared a second death sentence Friday by an Orange County jury that recommended life in prison for the strangulation of a Huntington Beach teen-ager. As the jury's verdict was read, Coffman's attorney victoriously waved his arm in the air, while members of the victim's family sat stunned in the crowded courtroom. Coffman, a 30-year-old former cocktail waitress from St.

A Santa Ana man who accidentally shot and wounded his 4-year-old daughter while unloading his gun, then fled to his relatives' home in Long Beach, began a three-year prison term Friday for endangering his child. Bartolo Quintana, 29, pleaded guilty Thursday in Orange County Superior Court to a felony charge of child endangerment and four counts of illegally possessing a firearm, Deputy Dist. Atty. Debora Lloyd said.

The California Supreme Court upheld the death sentences of three convicted killers Thursday, including the killer of an Orange County police officer, but refused to retreat from its long-established policy of giving closer scrutiny to capital cases. Prosecutors had asked the court to apply a less stringent standard when the justices try to determine whether procedural errors made during a trial should lead to the reversal of a death sentence.

A Costa Mesa youth who told police he watched a friend kill a woman and bury the body in a backyard planter was sentenced Monday to 360 days in jail. Kurt Biezunski, 17, originally was charged with first-degree murder along with Steven Telles, 16, in the killing of Eugenia Baker, 60. The woman's body was found in a garden planter at her Costa Mesa home on May 19, the day after she was killed. In sentencing Biezunski, Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco P.

His voice trembling, Al Carver told a hushed courtroom Friday that as his wife lay in a hospital three years ago "with the back of her head blown away," he made her two promises: He would find out who shot her and make sure the killer was punished. Carver saw those promises kept when, moments after he spoke, a judge sentenced 43-year-old Leonard Owen Mundy, the man convicted of Jane Carver's murder, to life in prison without parole.