Orange County D.A. Will Again Seek Death for Deputy’s Killer

The Orange County district attorney’s office announced Monday that it will ask a second jury to impose the death penalty on Maurice Steskal, convicted of killing an Orange County sheriff’s deputy in June 1999.

Superior Court Judge Frank Fasel declared a mistrial Dec. 2 in the penalty phase of Steskal’s trial after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of recommending life in prison without the possibility of parole. Fasel scheduled a hearing for Dec. 19 to schedule a new trial.

Authorities said Steskal, an unemployed laborer, pumped 30 rounds from an assault rifle into Sheriff’s Deputy Brad Riches and his patrol car at a Lake Forest 7-Eleven on June 12, 1999.

Riches, 34, was on patrol when he pulled up at the 7-Eleven at Muirlands Boulevard and Ridge Route Drive.

Jurors saw a surveillance tape of Steskal, 43, entering the store sometime after midnight carrying a rifle. According to Deputy Dist. Atty. David Brent, Steskal told the clerk to not be scared, that the gun was to protect him from police.

Soon after he left, the tape picked up the sound of the gunfire. Steskal fled, but an identification was made after authorities viewed the tape. He was arrested later that day while in a car with his wife. Brent said 30- and 100-round clips were found in the trunk of the car.

Deputy Public Defender Mark Davis argued that Steskal was plagued by an irrational, delusional fear of authorities most of his life and fired out of fear.

Brent said Steskal is “a coldblooded killer, pure and simple.”