CAMARILLO : D.A. Expects Death Penalty to Be Upheld

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury predicted Friday that the California Supreme Court will uphold the death penalty for Theodore Frank, who was convicted in the 1978 rape and torture-murder of a 2-year-old girl.

Bradbury said after sitting through oral arguments before the Supreme Court Thursday, “My hunch is, judging from the comments of the justices, they’ll uphold it . . . It was a flawless trial. The defense is just scraping to find an issue.”

Frank, now 55, was sentenced twice to the gas chamber for molesting and murdering Amy Sue Seitz of Camarillo. The second death sentence came in 1987 after the high court overturned the first one in 1985.

On Thursday, state Deputy Public Defender Stephen Matchett argued to the Supreme Court that the trial judge at Frank’s second sentencing had improperly considered statements by the victim’s grandmother, Patricia A. Linebaugh. Matchett said Linebaugh’s statements asking Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan to sentence Frank to death contained “implied threats” that he could be voted out of office if he changed the jury verdict from death to life in prison without parole.

Matchett declined Friday to discuss his predictions on how the Supreme Court will rule on Frank’s sentence. “I would decline to speculate on that,” he said.

The high court has 90 days from Thursday’s hearing in which to make its ruling.