Victim’s Survivor Feels Like Court Victim

Five times, Marianne Biederman attended what she thought would be a preliminary hearing for a woman charged in the hit-and-run death of Biederman’s 56-year-old mother, Velma McClure.

Each time, however, the hearing was delayed for various reasons.

Last week, Biederman visited West Municipal Court for the sixth scheduled hearing, certain that the 11-month-old case would finally get moving. Instead, Judge Frank F. Fasel dismissed the charge against defendant Paige DiStefano, 44, of Huntington Beach.

Court officials said the judge acted out of frustration when the prosecutor sought yet another delay.

On Thursday, Deputy Dist. Atty. David R. LaBahn refiled the felony hit-and-run charge against DiStefano, so the case is again active. But the prospect of having to endure the process all over again upsets Biederman.

“I just feel like for my mother and for my family and friends, there’s fair and then there’s unjust,” she said. “We have to go through that day when we get that phone call and we go to my mom’s, and she’s lying there on the street. . . . You have to wait until the legal aspect is over. . . .

“I can’t blame (the defendant’s) attorney; I can’t blame the D.A.’s office. It’s the system we have.”

In 1989, 1,678 felony cases were filed in West Municipal Court, along with 30,000 serious misdemeanors, for which jail time was a possible penalty, said Dick Biggins, the court’s executive officer.

Judge Fasel said this week that he cannot recall exactly why he dismissed DiStefano’s hit-run charge: “Too many cases come through here at a time. . . . It’s just impossible to remember.”

Biederman said court overcrowding, coupled with California’s system of extensive pretrial hearings, is to blame.

Justice is being delayed because judges and prosecutors are overburdened, Biederman said: “That’s the whole thing. That’s exactly it. I can remember (what happened at the hearing). I’m the victim.”

In a letter to newly appointed Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi, Biederman called the judge’s dismissal unfair because most of the hearing continuances were from the defense not being ready or the lack of an available courtroom.

Capizzi told The Times this week that his office is reviewing the matter.

McClure was an insurance agent and a volunteer companion for the AIDS Service Foundation in Costa Mesa when she died on the morning of Feb. 27. She was walking her dog on Ashland Drive in Huntington Beach when she was struck by a car and dragged more than 100 feet, police said. There were no witnesses, but neighbors heard the crash and ran to the scene.

DiStefano was arrested the same day as she drove her 1977 Lincoln Continental on Main Street near Golden West Street in Westminster. Investigators had apparently been tipped off by a neighbor who had spotted a similar vehicle shortly after the accident.

On March 9, DiStefano was charged with felony hit-and-run and freed on bail.

Thirteen court sessions were conducted without reaching the preliminary hearing required before a defendant can be bound over for trial. “We’re talking about just one person here, we’re not talking about the McMartin case,” Biederman said, referring to the convoluted Manhattan Beach preschool molestation trial, which became the longest criminal trial in history and resulted in not-guilty verdicts.

Fasel is the fifth judge to preside in the McClure death, and LaBahn is the third prosecutor.

When LaBahn sought a further delay at the hearing last week, he said he needed more time to line up an important witness. Defense attorney Todd A. Landgren, in turn, suggested that the case be dismissed--and the judge agreed.

“Finally,” Landgren recalled, “the judge said, ‘Enough excuses, it’s time to get off the pot.’ He found no good cause to continue the matter.”

Prosecutor LaBahn said it is unfortunate that the charge was dropped.

“It doesn’t happen often,” he said, noting that both the judge and the defense attorney knew that he would refile the hit-and-run count. LaBahn said he expects the case to proceed much faster. The preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 6.

At the time of her arrest, DiStefano was on probation for a 1986 conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol. She was also cited in the hit-and-run case for a misdemeanor violation of that drunk-driving probation, a matter that will also be heard Feb. 6.

“You really can’t force a defense counsel to be ready,” LaBahn noted. “If you go ahead when the defense isn’t ready, the appellate court will look at that” and possibly overturn a conviction.

Landgren acknowledged that, early on, he sought more time to prepare his case. He denied that he was purposely dragging out the case so it would be tied up in the courts.

For at least the last three months, he said, the delays have been caused by the prosecutor or court overcrowding.

Landgren said DiStefano has “wanted to go (forward) also. She’s wanted her day in court too, so she can tell her side of the story. . . . This person’s got rights also.”