Sentencing in Murder Case Delayed : Courts: Defense requests more time to prepare its argument for a life term rather than death penalty recommended by the jury.

A judge on Monday agreed to delay for nearly a month the sentencing of convicted Thousand Oaks killer Mark Scott Thornton, who faces a possible death penalty for kidnaping and murdering a Westlake nurse.

Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath, who was scheduled to sentence Thornton today for the 1993 murder of 33-year-old Kellie O’Sullivan, reset the hearing for May 15.

The delay came at the request of defense attorneys, who said the continuance gives them more time to prepare a motion urging McGrath to reduce Thornton’s sentence from death to life in prison without parole.

A jury voted last month to sentence Thornton to Death Row. McGrath must impose the verdict or reduce it to the lesser penalty.

Deputy Public Defender Susan R. Olson said that under state law, McGrath automatically is required to consider modifying the verdict, whether defense attorneys ask him to do so or not. The judge can reduce the verdict if he determines that the evidence presented during trial does not adequately justify the death penalty.

“As a practical matter, it’s (a judicial review) done in every case,” she said.

But defense attorneys, who have been publicly criticized by Thornton as incompetent, want to let the judge know the specific reason they believe the sentence should be life in prison, Olson said. The motion will be filed by Friday, she said.

Prosecutors disagree with the defense’s assertion that the jury’s sentence does not fit the crime. They have called Thornton a coldhearted murderer.

Thornton, in two jailhouse interviews with The Times, has expressed ambivalence over the verdict. He has called the death-penalty recommendation a victory in that he thinks Death Row is safer than other sections of the prison.

The young defendant said he could live the rest of his life in peace in the protective housing of San Quentin’s Death Row. If he received the lesser sentence, he said, he would be exposed to physical and sexual assault.