Youth in Murder Case Won’t Be Tried as Adult

A 15-year-old Yorba Linda youth accused of shooting his mother to death after a dispute over chocolate chip cookies will be tried as a juvenile because he has no previous criminal record and can likely be rehabilitated at a youth facility, a judge decided Wednesday.

Danny Connolly had faced the possibility of a life prison term had the judge moved the case to adult court under a new state law that allows teens as young as 14 to be treated and tried like adults for their crimes.

But Superior Court Judge Frank F. Fasel ruled that Connolly should remain in the juvenile justice system. Fasel said the youth was “not criminally sophisticated,” has expressed remorse for the slaying of his mother, 42-year-old Cindy Connolly, and could benefit from counseling at the California Youth Authority.

“This is not about sympathy. This is not about compassion,” Fasel said. “This hearing is about the law.”

Connolly, who was 14 at the time of his mother’s death, is the second Orange County youth charged with murder under the year-old law. The measure has been touted by lawmakers as a weapon against youth violence and assailed by critics who say it allows society to throw in the towel too soon on younger teens.

The case has drawn national attention amid concerns over soaring youth violence and debate in California and elsewhere over whether it is effective to lower the age at which children can be treated like adults.

Before January 1995, only children 16 and older could be sent to adult court in the state.

Some legal experts have questioned whether youths such as Connolly, who comes from a comfortable home in the suburbs, will be treated differently than children charged with felonies in more urban neighborhoods.

“This represents a dose of judicial sanity,” Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in San Francisco, said after Wednesday’s ruling in the Connolly case.

“What happened to Danny should happen to other 14-year-olds as well,” Krisberg said. “At 14, society should try rehabilitation before giving up on kids.”

Connolly, who was handcuffed and dressed in navy blue T-shirt, pants and sneakers, managed a shy smile at his lawyer when the judge made the ruling, which means that he will be out of custody by age 25.

His father, Phil Connolly, let out a huge sigh of relief, while more than a dozen friends and relatives wept and hugged each other.

“I thought we were going to lose at first. . . . It was like life and death in the balance,” said Phil Connolly, 45, a captain with the Orange County Fire Authority. “But then the judge came back and ruled that Danny was fit [for Juvenile Court]. . . . Now we have hope. There’s still hope. That’s what came out of today’s decision.”

The Connolly case is in sharp contrast to the conviction of Mario Luis Ortiz, a 15-year-old admitted gang member from Long Beach, who in January became the first youth sentenced in Orange County under the new law.

A judge ordered Ortiz to spend 29 years to life in state prison for assisting in a robbery that ended in the shooting death of a Seal Beach gas station clerk. Ortiz was 14 when he joined a 19-year-old companion in pulling off the heist, but was not the gunman. Ortiz had been arrested at least twice before the crime and was on probation in Los Angeles County, his attorney, Dennis McNerney, said.

McNerney said he was surprised at the Connolly decision. “It’s routine to send juveniles up to adult courts for murders now,” he said. “Heck, they’ve sent kids up that have had very little to do with the crime without batting an eye.”

“I wish [judges] would give other kids, kids who are underprivileged, a chance.”

In San Diego this month, 14-year-old Tony Edward Hicks was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for shooting a pizza deliveryman to death.

Danny Connolly, who investigators say confessed to killing his mother, would serve his time with other youngsters under the California Youth Authority, which releases all inmates by age 25.

During a three-day hearing, defense witnesses testified that tension between Connolly and his parents had been building for months after they restricted him for misdeeds such as smoking cigarettes and making long-distance calls without asking, according to court testimony.

The teen’s resentment exploded Feb. 22 during an argument with Cindy Connolly over a handful of missing cookies, witnesses said. He denied taking the cookies, but his mother didn’t believe him.

The prosecutor said Connolly took a .22-caliber handgun from his father’s closet, loaded the weapon and put on a makeshift silencer. Connolly approached his mother as she stood washing dishes and allegedly shot her in the back.

“Danny was carrying this mountain of stuff with him and all of a sudden, she is saying, ‘I don’t believe you, you’re a liar,’ ” said Deputy Public Defender Michael Giannini.

Connolly chased his mother through a living room into a hallway, where he emptied the gun at her, police said.

That same week, Connolly had been caught cheating in class and had learned that school officials were notifying his parents about two Ds in his course work, the defense attorney said.

“This is an absolutely unique case,” Giannini said of his client, who is white. “I think if this had been a brown kid or a black kid or a kid in a poor neighborhood, I think [the judge] would have looked for the same factors. There is no message here other than pain.”

Prosecutor Dan McNerney, who sought to have Connolly tried as an adult, contended that the crime was especially heinous because of the teen’s “coldblooded” attack on his own mother.

Dan McNerney contended that Connolly planned the slaying for two months and told a friend on the day of the shooting, “Tonight’s the night, dude.”

The prosecutor said that rehabilitating the youth would be “educated guess work” at best, noting that the defense’s mental health experts failed to identify exactly what caused Connolly to gun down his mother.

Although Fasel ruled that Connolly was fit for Juvenile Court, the judge also expressed some of the same concern about rehabilitation.

“The judge had to wrestle with very, very difficult issues,” said Dan McNerney. “Unfortunately, we took a different view of the evidence than he did.”

Krisberg and another legal expert who testifies in Juvenile Court said they have seen many cases in which suspects who commit violence against family do not receive penalties as strict as those who commit the same crimes against strangers.

“Studies have shown over and over again that the justice system reacts less strictly to crimes against family members,” Krisberg said. “It makes no sense. It’s a double standard that the justice system is riddled with.”

Alan Minkowsky, a San Diego forensic psychologist who has testified on behalf of juveniles accused of killing parents, said there is more than “just violence” when it comes to crimes committed against family.

“In many instances, the evidence signals to the judge that there is something peculiar going on in the family that, although it may not justify the crime, explains it,” Minkowsky said.

In San Diego, a judge ruled two years ago that a 16-year-old who fatally stabbed his mother 67 times be tried in juvenile, Minkowsky said. He also cited a more recent case in which a 16-year-old San Diego youth shot his father in the eye and stabbed his stepmother and was tried as a juvenile. Both survived the attack and testified on the youth’s behalf, Minkowsky said.

Nationwide, about 100 homicides annually involve juveniles who kill at least one parent, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

For the Connolly family, the shooting left Phil Connolly and his 9-year-old daughter, Caitlen, struggling with the loss of two family members.

Danny Connolly’s next court date is July 12. Giannini said he is planning to enter a guilty plea and “wrap up” the case as soon as possible.

“He’ll have 11 years among the hardest youths that California has to offer,” Phil Connolly said. “He didn’t get away with anything. Justice has been served and justice has a very serious face.”