Ex-Firefighter Gets Life Spared in Arson Cases

Lifting the specter of a death sentence, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Wednesday that it would accept a life prison term for John Leonard Orr, the former Glendale arson investigator convicted of igniting a series of fires.

Orr was convicted last month by a Superior Court jury of setting a 1984 fire at Ole’s Home Center in South Pasadena, killing four people, including a 2-year-old boy. Orr also was found guilty of 20 arson counts in a string of brush fires, including a 1990 blaze that destroyed or damaged 67 homes in Glendale.

Last month, the jury deadlocked 8 to 4 on whether to recommend that the 17-year veteran firefighter be executed.

In the absence of a unanimous jury recommendation, Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry is limited by law to imposing a maximum sentence of life without parole by Sept. 17, unless prosecutors decided to fight for the death penalty before a new jury.

“Virtually the whole trial would have been done over before a new jury,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney. “After reviewing the case, we felt this was the appropriate action to take.”

Defense attorney Peter Giannini said the move by prosecutors to drop their pursuit of the death penalty is “the appropriate decision in the case.”

During the trial, prosecutors buttressed their case by introducing “Points of Origin,” an unpublished novel Orr wrote detailing the activities of a firefighter who conceals his secret identity as an arsonist. In the novel, the protagonist sets fire to a Pasadena hardware store called “Cal’s,” which kills several employees as well as a woman and her young grandson.

Before he was convicted in the state case, Orr was serving a 30-year federal prison sentence for charges stemming from a series of store blazes in the San Joaquin Valley. He also pleaded guilty to setting fires in North Hollywood and near Atascadero.