New D.A. Policy Bans Bail Releases in Slayings : Rule change: The action, and an apology, followed meetings that prosecutors had with ministers angered by the handling of suspects in the slaying of a Pacoima pastor.

In response to community outrage over the “absurdly low” bail set for two white suspects in the slaying of the black pastor of a Pacoima church, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office apologized to the victim’s family Friday and announced a policy change that will generally make suspects in murder cases ineligible for bail.

Gregory Thompson, chief deputy district attorney, said under the new guidelines prosecutors will routinely recommend no bail for suspects in murder cases. If circumstances of a case lead prosecutors to deviate from that policy to recommend that bail be allowed, any amount under $250,000 will require approval of top administrators in the district attorney’s downtown offices, he said.

“If it’s a murder case, we are starting with the assumption that there is no bail and we go from there,” Thompson said.

The policy change follows meetings between prosecutors and ministers and community activists from the northeast San Fernando Valley. The community groups were angered when prosecutors recommended $20,000 bail for the two white teen-agers charged in the July 28 slaying of 54-year-old Carl White, pastor of the Apostolic Temple Church in Pacoima.

The Ministers’ Fellowship of the Greater San Fernando Valley labeled the low bail “lethal racism,” and charged that if two black men were accused of slaying a white minister then such an amount would not be recommended.

On Friday, the ministers backed away from charges of racism and lauded the policy change and their new-found relationship with the district attorney’s office.

“This is what we asked for,” the Rev. James V. Lyles, president of the ministers’ group, said of the policy and of the district attorney’s response to their complaint. “I think this will prohibit a similar thing from happening again.”

Authorities said White was killed in his Chatsworth residence by two Northridge teen-agers who shot him during a dispute over a minor traffic accident that occurred the night before. Three days after the slaying, police arrested Philip Dimenno, 19, and Dana Singer, 18. Both were charged with murder.

Before the suspects’ arraignment, prosecutors in the San Fernando office recommended the unusually low bail of $20,000 because of several factors, including the suspects’ ties to the community, their lack of known criminal records, their cooperation with investigators and because they lived with their parents.

But the next day the bail for each man was revoked at prosecutors’ request when police learned the gun used in the White slaying had been stolen, that the suspects had been previously cited for carrying weapons and allegedly had prior involvement with credit-card fraud. Singer was never released before his bail was revoked, and Dimenno was free less than a day before he was jailed again.

The district attorney’s office denied the racism charge raised by the ministers. Billy D. Webb, the head of the prosecutors’ office in San Fernando who had approved the bail recommendation, said he was unaware of the race of the victim when he made the bail decision.

After reviewing Webb’s decision, top officials in the prosecutors’ office said it was a mistake.

At a news conference at the courthouse on Friday, Thompson--one of Webb’s supervisors--called the $20,000 bail “absurdly low” and said, “It cheapened the life and death of Rev. White.”

Thompson said the tragedy that White’s family experienced by his death was compounded by the bail error. “They had a right to expect more from the criminal justice system,” he said.

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s office released a copy of a letter he sent this week to the victim’s wife, Margaret.

“The initial decision to recommend the bail for the defendants clearly was wrong . . .,” Reiner wrote.

Fred Taylor, a member of the ministers’ group and president of a consortium of local homeowners’ groups, said at the news conference that the end to the bail controversy will help improve relations between the community and the district attorney’s office.

“We are ecstatic about the conclusion we have here today,” Taylor said. “This is the way to work within the system.”

The ministers’ group is scheduled to meet this morning with Mayor Tom Bradley to discuss the bail issue and other community concerns.