Farrell In-Law Spared Prison In Husband’s Shooting Death

The sister-in-law of Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, convicted last month of involuntary manslaughter in the 1981 shooting death of her husband, was spared a prison term Friday when a judge ruled that the 37-year-old woman “had already faced punishment of the severest type.”

Family members, friends and jurors in the courtroom burst out in cheers, applause and sobs as Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp announced her decision to fine Alice Yolanda Wallace $1,000 and place her on probation for three years.

Wallace, a Los Angeles resident who was 33 years old and lived in a Panorama City condominium at the time of the killing, faced a maximum term of five years in state prison.

Teary Embrace

Outside the courtroom, the elegantly dressed Wallace, who is an aide to Farrell, cried on the shoulder of her attorney, Leslie Abramson. Wallace was joined in the teary embrace by her sister, Essiebea Farrell, Councilman Farrell’s wife.

“A conscience is a greater security device for society than a jail term,” Abramson said. “I’ve never seen anyone as truly remorseful as Alice is.”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip Rabichow, who prosecuted the case, said Wallace “got away without being punished in the way society punishes for killing another human being.”

“It was not an excusable act. No one has the right to dispatch another human being from this earth,” he said.

Shaking his head, Rabichow said, “You don’t have a right to get a gun and go after someone--unless it was in self-defense, which wasn’t the case here.” He said that custody in County Jail, instead of a prison term, would have been an appropriate sentence.

Wallace was convicted by a jury on Jan. 31 of involuntary manslaughter. During the 16-day trial, Wallace testified that her husband, Julian Wallace, suffered from frequent rages of jealousy, and often monitored his wife’s activities.

Alice Wallace testified that, on Feb. 1, 1981, the day of the slaying, her husband carried her from their bathroom and held her above a stairway.

Wallace testified that her husband, a 44-year-old quality control director for a Burbank engineering firm, told her, “You don’t believe that I’ll throw you down these stairs.”

She testified that her husband then threw her on a bed, went downstairs and disconnected the telephone in the condominium. Fearing that he would return to injure her, Alice Wallace said, she picked up a pistol in the bedroom dresser and walked downstairs.

70 Letters Cited

After Julian Wallace grabbed her arm, the gun accidentally fired, and a fatal shot hit him in the upper left torso, she said.

In explaining her decision to spare Wallace incarceration, Judge Schempp cited more than 70 letters of support she received on behalf of the defendant.

Schempp said that, if Wallace were imprisoned, the couple’s 3-year-old twin daughters “would be left without a mother and would be the ones to suffer the most.”

The judge said Julian Wallace “apparently loved too much and became obsessed with unfounded suspicion and jealousy.”

A Probation Department report had recommended that Wallace be sentenced to the maximum prison term. “The defendant killed this man and must be held accountable in order that justice be served,” read the report.