10-Year Sentence in Drunk Driving Death Is Reduced

SANTA ANA — Daniel David Ornelas, currently serving a 10-year prison term in Soledad for running down a Newport Beach woman in a 1988 drunk driving accident, may soon go free following an appellate court decision this week that modifies his conviction and drastically reduces his sentence.

Ornelas, then 19, was convicted in 1989 of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated with gross negligence. Superior Court Judge Luis A. Cardenas sentenced Ornelas to the maximum possible prison term, finding that his victim, 37-year-old Debbie Killelea--a mother of three--was “particularly vulnerable” and that Ornelas’ crime involved “great violence.”

But a three-judge panel from the 4th Appellate District Court ruled unanimously on Tuesday that Cardenas erred both in his instructions to jurors and in his reasoning for sentencing Ornelas to the maximum term.

Because of the errors, the court modified Ornelas’ conviction by removing the finding of gross negligence--a change that reduces Ornelas’ maximum possible sentence from 10 years to four.