LONGEST PRELIMINARY HEARINGS

Los Angeles County’s longest preliminary hearings occurred in felony cases that have also set state and national records:

The McMartin Pre-School molestation case, in which seven defendants were held to answer, only to have the district attorney dismiss charges against five, was in preliminary hearing for 19 months in 1984-1986. The hearing was the longest of its kind in California and nationwide. Trial is pending for the two remaining defendants, Raymond Buckey, 27, and his mother, Peggy McMartin Buckey, 59.

The “Hillside Strangler” case, in which Glendale upholsterer Angelo Buono was ordered tried for the murders of 10 young women, was in preliminary hearing for nine months in 1980. Buono was acquitted of one murder, convicted of nine, and sentenced to life without possibility of parole in the nation’s longest criminal trial, which lasted two years and two days.

The “Night Stalker” case, in which Richard Ramirez was bound over to Superior Court for trial on 14 murder charges last May 6, was in preliminary hearing 30 court days spread over two months and two weeks in 1986. His trial is pending.

The murder-for-hire case in which two former Los Angeles police officers, Richard H. Ford and Robert A. VonVillas, were ordered to stand trial for the murder of Northridge businessman Thomas Weed, was in preliminary hearing two months in 1985. After a relatively short five-day preliminary hearing in 1983, the two were also held to answer for conspiracy to murder striptease dancer Joan Loguercio, who died this year of cancer. Trial is pending in both cases.

The “snake” case in which Synanon founder Charles Dederich and two of his “imperial marines,” Lance Kenton and Joseph Musico, were held to answer for assault with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to kill attorney Paul Morantz by putting a rattlesnake in his mailbox, was in preliminary hearing for seven weeks in 1979, after an aborted five-day preliminary hearing ended when the first judge bowed out. After pleading no contest to the charges, the elderly Dederich was sentenced to five years’ probation and fined $5,000, and the other two were sentenced to one year in county jail and three years’ probation.