Man Convicted of Second-Degree Murder : Courts: He admits to fatally wounding a teen-ager during a drive-by shooting in Lake Forest last year.

A 19-year-old man who confessed to killing a teen-ager during a drive-by shooting in Lake Forest was convicted Monday of second-degree murder by a Superior Court jury.

Prosecutors had asked jurors to convict Matthew Lloyd Conant of Mission Viejo of first-degree murder, which would have made him eligible for a prison sentence of 25 years to life. However, when he returns to court Aug. 14 for sentencing, Conant is expected to receive 15 years to life for the slaying of 17-year-old Bylan Hanna on Dec. 28.

Conant is the first of four young men--all of whom prosecutors allege are gang members--to be tried on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the Hanna shooting. Prosecutors allege the defendants methodically planned to kill Bylan, who was shot as he was talking to his brothers and friends in a bedroom in the Hanna home.

Trials for the other three defendants, who have pleaded not guilty, are pending.

After the verdict Monday, jurors gathered outside the courtroom and told both attorneys that during their 1 1/2 days of deliberation, they could not find that Conant went to the victim’s home with the intention of killing him.

The jurors said that while they agreed with the prosecution that Conant saw a person standing by a window and that he shot at the shadowy figure, they do not believe that he pulled the trigger with the intention of killing anyone.

Instead, members of the jury said they agreed with the defense that the shooting was done on the “spur of the moment” and that the gunshots could have been meant as a threat or warning to the young men in the house.

“We tried to go with (the allegation) that (Conant) tried to kill someone at the window, and the argument for that broke down every time,” said jury foreman Jeffrey Lyons, 28. “There were too many other possibilities as to what was in his mind, and we had doubts that he was trying to kill somebody.”

Although she was disappointed by the verdict, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood said she respected the jurors’ decision. Still, Kirkwood said in an interview, she was surprised and puzzled that the jury could agree that Conant shot at a specific target--the silhouette in the window--and yet find that he did not shoot to kill.

“The only one reasonable interpretation of the conduct of a person--that he pointed the gun at somebody and (fired) it three times--the only reasonable explanation for that is shooting with the intent to kill,” Kirkwood said.

The prosecutor declined to discuss how the verdict might change her strategy for the future trials of Conant’s three co-defendants.

Conant’s attorney, Thomas H. Wolfsen, said after the verdict that the shooting was a “tragedy for the victim as well as Mr. Conant.”

“What you have is all these kids down in South County (who) were party-goers,” Wolfsen said, explaining what led to the shooting. “They went to a party and an outsider group came to this party--there had been bad blood with this outsider group--and there was an immediate reaction.”

Prosecutors said Bylan, his brothers and some friends had attended a party Dec. 27. There they got into an altercation with Conant and his friends, and threats were exchanged.

During the trial, Conant testified that the next night, as he and his friends were leaving another party, they met with other friends who showed them where Bylan lived. They drove by the house, and Conant said he fired at the window where Bylan’s brother had been standing. The shots missed the brother, but struck Bylan, who had been leaning against a wall.

Conant turned himself in several days later and confessed to the shooting.

The other youths who were in the car with him that night were Christopher Womack and Jason Legare, both of Mission Viejo, and Carl Stewart of Laguna Niguel.

A fifth defendant who is a juvenile has pleaded guilty to firing a gun into an inhabited dwelling, Kirkwood said. He was sentenced to seven years in the California Youth Authority.