FULLERTON : Murder Charge Isn’t Revived in Drug Case

A Superior Court judge has refused to reinstate murder charges against a Tustin man who sold cocaine to a young woman who died from an overdose.

Judge James J. Alfano dismissed murder charges five years ago against Sandy Patterson, now 27, who was accused of providing the cocaine that killed Jenny Liciero on Nov. 25, 1985. He pleaded guilty to a charge of furnishing the drugs and was placed on probation on that charge.

But prosecutors appealed Alfano’s ruling, ultimately to the state Supreme Court. Prosecutors argued that the cocaine seller whose sale leads to an overdose is guilty of second-degree murder because he knows his actions could result in someone’s death.

The state Supreme Court two years ago ordered the case sent back to Alfano with instructions to review his own decision, focusing on a more specific section of the Penal Code for basing his finding.

But Thursday, Alfano said his ruling would be the same.

“I think it’s going to make it more difficult for prosecutors to file murder charges against people who sell cocaine to someone else,” said Julian Bailey, Patterson’s attorney. “It’s a significant legal issue.”

Bailey argued that no matter how serious an offense it might be to furnish drugs to someone, it doesn’t amount to murder.

“It takes a volitional act on the part of the user,” Bailey said.

The district attorney’s office was successful in getting a second-degree murder conviction in a similar case before Superior Court Judge Richard J. Beacom in recent months. But Bailey pointed out that the case involved PCP, not cocaine.

The case is also similar to the John Belushi case in Los Angeles County, Bailey said, except the charge there against the drug supplier, Kathi Smith, was manslaughter, not murder.

Patterson was not present for Thursday’s hearing. He is in Soledad prison, serving an eight-year sentence for a subsequent drug conviction.