CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : OAKLAND : Freeway Murderer Sentenced to Death

A gunman convicted of murdering four people and attempting to murder six others in a series of shootings on an Oakland freeway in 1989 was sentenced to death. Charles Arnett Stevens, 23, showed little emotion when Alameda County Superior Court Judge William McGuiness ruled that jurors acted properly when they recommended Stevens be sentenced to death rather than life without parole. Stevens is an inmate at San Quentin State Prison. McGuiness called the murders “vicious and pitiless” and said Stevens exhibited “the highest degree of cruelty and callousness and adds new dimensions to those terms.” Karen Adams, sister of victim Lori Ann Rochon, said, “If anybody deserves to die, he does. He’s a cruel person. I want to be there at San Quentin when he takes his last breath.”