Bland Is 1st Sentenced to Life Without Parole Under Law

A federal court judge Thursday made Warren James Bland the first person in California sentenced to life in prison without parole under a new law that targets repeat offenders.

U.S. District Judge J. Lawrence Irving imposed the term on Bland, 53, of Los Angeles, who had been convicted last month of being a repeat felon in possession of a gun.

The judge had sentenced Bland to the life without parole term last year, but it was overturned by a federal appeals court, which ruled he erred by telling jurors Bland was wanted in the 1986 killing of Phoebe Ho, a 7-year-old South Pasadena girl.

Bland was convicted Nov. 16 under the 4-year-old Armed Career Criminal Act, which allows repeat offenders arrested while in possession of a firearm to be sentenced to life without parole--his 14th felony conviction.

“You have, by virtue of your conduct, inflicted cruel and unusual punishment on your victims of incalculable proportions, in my view,” Irving said Thursday, pointing out that Bland’s victims, many of them women and children, had suffered “horrible trauma.”

“I am convinced beyond any possible doubt that you must be permanently incarcerated. . . . You have earned a permanent cell in federal prison.”

Bland, 53, who has spent 28 of the past 31 years in prison or mental institutions, was impassive.

Bland’s first felony offense came in 1957, Burns said. According to court documents, he has been convicted, among other crimes, of burglary, rape and kidnaping. He was most recently released from prison in 1986.

In February, 1987, Bland was arrested by San Diego police in the torture and murder of Phoebe Ho, whose body was found in a Riverside County ditch. She had disappeared while walking to school in December, 1986. Bland awaits a preliminary hearing in that case.

He is also a suspect in the slayings of 14-year-old Wendy Osborn of Placentia in Orange County and Ruth M. Ost, 81, of San Diego.