Father Urges Leniency for Boy Accused of Murdering Mother

An Orange County fire captain said Thursday he will continue fighting to have his 14-year-old son stand trial for murder as a juvenile for the shooting death of the boy’s mother at the family’s Yorba Linda home.

Phil Connolly, 45, made his comments after a judge postponed a hearing to determine whether Danny Connolly should be tried as an adult--and possibly face a stiff prison sentence.

The father said Danny Connolly, who has no prior police record, needs rehabilitative help at the California Youth Authority, not treatment as an “adult hardened criminal.”

“Everybody realizes my son needs to be punished, along with me and him even,” Phil Connolly said during an impromptu news conference outside the juvenile courthouse in Orange.

“I’m put in the awkward position of trying to defend him enough to get him into juvenile court rather than adult court. I still love him. Have I forgiven him? Not completely, but, you know, I will. I’m not going to abandon him.”

Presiding Juvenile Court Judge Frank F. Fasel delayed the teen’s hearing until June 19, when he will consider whether to send Danny Connolly to adult court under a year-old state law that requires young murder suspects to be treated as adults in almost all circumstances.

Children in California as young as 14 now can be tried--and punished--for serious felonies as adults. Previously, the age was 16 or older.

Prosecutors have said they are seeking to have Danny Connolly tried as an adult because they believe the Feb. 22 slaying of Cindy Connolly, a 42-year-old dental hygienist, was planned.

Brea police investigators said Danny returned home from school that day and began to argue with his mother about being grounded. The boy’s father and sister were both out.

The boy allegedly fitted a pistol he and his father used for target shooting with a makeshift silencer--made out of a plastic bottle--and fired at his mother as she ran through the house. Cindy Connolly was hit by four bullets.

Deputy Public Defender Michael P. Giannini said the new law should not be applied in Danny Connolly’s case because the boy’s actions were an “aberrant” event in his otherwise ordinary life.

“There is no law that should be made for everyone unilaterally,” Giannini said.

The defense attorney said he sought to delay the hearing to arrange for schoolteachers and experts to testify on the teen’s behalf.

If convicted as a juvenile, Danny Connolly would be incarcerated in the California Youth Authority, which does not hold anyone past 25. If convicted as an adult, he faces a maximum life sentence in prison.