Boy, 15, Sentenced as Accessory in Claes Killing : Crime: He is ordered to spend three years in Youth Authority. Mother of 14-year-old victim calls for tougher punishment of juveniles who cover up crimes.

A 15-year-old boy was ordered sent to the California Youth Authority on Monday for his role as an accessory after the fatal shooting of Carl Dan Claes, a 14-year-old Tustin boy who police said was killed over a stereo system.

The juvenile offender, whose 16-year-old brother faces trial as an adult for murder in the case, was given a three-year sentence by Orange County Presiding Juvenile Judge Frank F. Fasel.

He is the third minor ordered sent to the CYA for being accessories after the May 17 killing of Claes. Two adults also have been sentenced to six-months terms in Orange County Jail on similar charges.

Two other teens--Tommy Miller, 16, and Jason Merritt, now 18--await trial as adults in Orange County Superior Court on murder charges. They have pleaded not guilty.

Monday’s sentencing, the last before the murder trial, prompted Claes’ mother to issue a statement recalling her son as “an innocent boy” and advocating stricter treatment of juvenile offenders who help cover up a crime.

“C.D. abhorred firearms and violence. He was never arrested nor was he in trouble with law enforcement. . . . Carl Dan loved life and creation. We miss him very much,” said Claes’ mother, Danella George.

“We have learned very painfully that existing juvenile law does not include accessory to murder after the fact that can be tried in adult court,” George said. “This means no first strike. This law needs to be changed and it can by legislation.”

George’s call comes amid a movement in California and elsewhere that already has toughened penalties for juveniles involved in serious crimes such as murder, rape and robbery. In such cases, juveniles as young as 14 are now being tried and punished as adults.

Claes was found shot to death on a dirt path in Lemon Heights, a few miles from the Tustin home where he lived with his grandfather. Danella George, an employee of the U.S. Forest Service, lived in the Northern California town of Sonora and planned to move her son there at the end of the school year.

Authorities allege that Claes had loaned his $2,500 mobile sound system to Tommy Miller and was killed during a dispute after Miller refused to give it back.

Claes, who suffered from attention-deficit disorder, was recently buried in the eastern Texas town where Danella George’s mother grew up. George’s mother died only weeks before the fatal shooting. Claes and his grandmother were buried next to each other Oct. 8, George said.

George, who has said little in public since the killing shocked many residents, called on local officials to address youth crime in the Tustin community.

“It is our desire that no parent or grandparent or sibling in Tustin must endure what we do,” she said.