VENTURA : Jury Trial Waived in Kolodziej Case

In a surprise decision less than an hour before jury selection was to begin, the Ventura County district attorney’s office agreed Monday to a non-jury proceeding in the murder trial of Kevin Kolodziej.

“I’m blown away that they did it,” said Steve P. Lipson, one of two deputy public defenders representing Kolodziej in the slaying of 90-year-old Velasta Johnson of Ventura on Jan. 17.

Lipson said the decision surprised him because the circumstances of the crime--a frail, elderly woman stabbed in the heart in her own home--would almost certainly have prejudiced the jury against his client.

But after Lipson’s co-counsel, Neil B. Quinn, broached the idea to Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris on Monday morning, the offer was accepted.

Kossoris said prosecutors--including Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury--believe that they can get a fair trial from Superior Court Judge James M. McNally, who will decide the case. Kossoris said the court trial--expected to last about three weeks, contrasted with an estimated seven weeks for a jury trial--will be easier on the victim’s family.

Jackie Thetford, the victim’s daughter, said she was pleased by the decision.

Both Lipson and Kossoris said they might not have waived a jury trial if the case had been assigned to a different judge. “With some judges, we definitely would not have waived,” Lipson said.

The defense admits that Kolodziej, 25, a drifter from Virginia with a history of mental illness, killed Johnson. The dispute centers on whether it occurred during a burglary--and therefore was first-degree murder--or constitutes some lesser homicide charge. Conviction of the “special circumstance” of burglary would subject Kolodziej to life in prison without parole.

In one of his most significant rulings so far in the case, McNally refused to allow most of Kolodziej’s taped confession to be introduced as evidence, saying Ventura police had obtained it illegally. When a Municipal Court judge ordered Kolodziej to stand trial on the burglary allegation, he cited the confession as crucial evidence.

Kossoris acknowledged Monday that it will be harder to prove a burglary without the confession. He declined to say whether loss of the confession was a factor in agreeing to a court trial.

Lipson said he believes that the slaying was involuntary manslaughter, the least serious homicide charge, which carries a maximum term of four years. “We think he lashed out in a paranoid attack,” Lipson said.

Assuming that McNally convicts Kolodziej of some homicide charge, the judge will then hear evidence and rule on Kolodziej’s plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. If the judge finds that Kolodziej was insane, he would be hospitalized.

In court Monday, Kolodziej answered “yes, sir” several times as Kossoris and McNally asked whether he understood his right to a jury trial and was voluntarily waiving it.

Satisfied that the defendant understood, McNally said: “We’ll notify the jury commissioner that we won’t be needing 100 jurors today.”

About 115 prospective jurors had been summoned Monday for the case, and jury selection was to have taken up to a week.

The attorneys are scheduled to make their opening statements this morning.