ANAHEIM : Convicted Slayer Defies Judge, Jury

A 28-year-old defendant in a double slaying in Anaheim escaped a possible death sentence Tuesday but was still furious over the murder conviction handed down against him, shouting at both the judge and the jurors before being removed from the courtroom.

A Superior Court jury found John R. Jordan Jr. of Riverside guilty of murder but split on further allegations that would have sent his case into a death-penalty sentencing phase.

Jordan shouted at the jurors after their verdicts were read, telling them to go ahead and convict him on all findings.

“Why don’t you just give it all up,” Jordan shouted. “You’ve gone this far. Give it all up.”

When Superior Court Judge Everett W. Dickey told Jordan to be quiet, Jordan shot back: “Be quiet for what? . . . They didn’t do the whole job.”

When the judge tried again to quiet him, Jordan snapped at him: “Don’t you look at me like that, you (expletive).” Courtroom observers disagreed on what name Jordan called the judge, but all agreed that it was an expletive. It was then that Dickey had Jordan removed.

Jordan was convicted by the all-woman jury of first-degree murder in the July 21, 1989, shooting deaths of Ricardo Van Stubbs, 27, and Suzanne Rivera, 26. But jurors split 7 to 5 in favor of convicting him on special circumstances of robbery, burglary and multiple murder.

Unless prosecutors seek a new trial, the jury split means that Jordan cannot receive either the death penalty or a sentence of life without parole. Instead, his sentence will be a standard 27 years to life in prison, making him eligible for parole in about 12 years.

The Anaheim couple were found in their upstairs apartment nine days after they had been bound and shot. Police were tipped off by an informant, who said Jordan had told him that he had killed two people in Orange County.

Prosecutors believe that Jordan and a co-defendant, Charles Oscar Sabbath, planned to rob the couple and were also upset with them over a failed drug deal.

Jordan’s fingerprint was found on the duct tape used to tie up one of the victims, authorities said, and Sabbath testified that Jordan was the killer. Sabbath is already serving a 26-years-to-life sentence after his murder conviction at an earlier trial.

Even though jurors found Jordan guilty of two murders, plus robbery and burglary, they were split over the special-circumstances findings on those same three issues. A special circumstance is needed to make a defendant eligible for the death penalty.

In order to find special circumstances of robbery or burglary, the jury would have had to conclude that either crime was the defendant’s main intention when he entered the apartment. To find a multiple-murder special circumstance, the jury would have had to find that the defendant meant for both victims to die.

“I think the jury’s split (on double murder) means they simply weren’t sure who the actual shooter was,” said Milton C. Grimes, Jordan’s attorney.

On Tuesday, Dickey never raised his voice in response to Jordan’s many interruptions. In fact, after Jordan calmed down in an adjacent holding cell, the judge permitted him back into the courtroom for the rest of the session.

Jordan’s mother, grandmother and aunt were also angry. Afterwards, they were heard blaming his conviction on white racism.

Jordan is scheduled to be sentenced by Dickey on Aug. 16. Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles J. Middleton said it was too early to decide whether to seek a new trial, which would allow his office to try again for the death penalty against Jordan.

“It’s been a pretty trying day,” Middleton said.