Chance gets 50 years to life
Former Bakersfield elementary school principal sentenced for husband’s murder
An audible sigh of relief came from Todd Chance’s family members in the corner of the crowded courtroom as the maximum sentence for his 2013 murder was handed down by Judge Charles Brehmer on Wednesday morning.
Leslie Chance was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison at the Kern County Superior Court for the murder of her husband. Chance was sentenced on one count of first-degree murder along with a firearm enhancement conviction, which each brought sentences of 25 years to life.
“I thought it was absolutely appropriate (for the judge) to not take the firearm enhancement off,” said Assistant District Attorney Andrea Kohler in a press conference after the sentencing. “This was not a mitigated murder. It was a premeditated, sophisticated murder.”
Tony Lidgett, Chance’s defense attorney, pleaded his case throughout the proceedings for Brehmer to dismiss the firearm enhancement charge by citing Chance’s previously clean criminal record and strong community reputation. He said that 25 years in prison was a sufficient punishment and an additional 25 years would be a “death sentence” for Chance, who is 53.
Brehmer acknowledged Chance’s past as being good, but said the facts of the case depicted an “intimate” murder.
“(The murder) has to have been planned in advance. This is a horrific case that had to have been planned,” Brehmer said.
Chance, a former elementary school principal, was convicted in January of murdering her husband, who was 45. Prosecutors presented evidence that Chance left home with her husband the morning of his murder, killed him and left his body in an orchard. She then deposited his car in a run-down neighborhood before disguising herself as she made her way back home by taxi and on foot.
Diana Chance, Todd Chance’s mother, spoke during the sentencing hearing where she emotionally expressed her gratitude to the jury, prosecutors, detectives and victim advocates who have supported them. She also described the defendant as being “not human” and “pure evil from head to toe.”
“There’s no such thing as real justice when a loved one is gone,” Chance said. “The day the verdict was read (in January), nobody won. There was no victory that day.”
While the prosecution and Todd Chance’s family expressed their satisfaction with the result of the trial, they lamented how long the process drew out the proceedings.
Leslie Chance will also owe Todd Chance’s family $11,420.13 in restitution, along with an indeterminate restitution to the probation department and other fees, according to Brehmer.
State officials have failed to account for all of Kern County’s coronavirus tests, according to local officials, potentially limiting the county’s ability to reopen businesses and schools.
During Sept. 17’s weekly media briefing, the county said the state missed around 8,600 COVID-19 tests that were completed at a federal testing site at the Kern County Fairgrounds beginning in midJuly. While initially not an issue, the total number of COVID-19 tests completed in each county has become of paramount importance since Gov. Gavin Newsom changed state requirements several weeks ago.
The new requirements classify counties based on four tiers, penalizing counties with artificially increased coronavirus metrics if the rate of testing performed by those counties falls below the state average.
In Kern County, 6.7 new coronavirus cases are reported each day over a seven-day period per 100,000 residents. The state says that all counties with case rates of 7 or below can move into the third tier. However, because Kern County’s testing rate
as of Sept. 16 was 150 people per 100,000 — below the state average of 216 per 100,000 — the state has inflated Kern’s case rate to 7.5, forcing the county to remain in the fourth tier.
Kern’s positivity rate, which measures the number of positive results from the total number of tests performed, is 7.1 percent, which is good enough for the county to enter into a lower tier. Still, the county remains blocked from moving to a lower tier because of the low rates of overall testing.
The county said the federal testing site’s testing totals were not included in the state’s list because the site faxed the information to the county rather than providing it electronically. Kern officials are looking to rectify this issue with the state even though doing so will not alter the county’s status.
“We are trying to work on it now so that for the next assessment, it will be included in their calculations,” said Kern Public Health Services Lead Epidemiologist Kim Hernandez. “Because we want to make sure that it is accurately reflecting what’s going on in our community. It’s something where moving forward is where the correction will help us.”
The federally-funded testing location has been converted into a mobile facility that Kern officials say will have a greater impact on the county as a whole.
CSUB has made the cut for the annual U.S. News and World Report 2021 Best Colleges report, which ranks 1,452 higher education institutions that offer bachelor’s degrees.
The university was ranked No. 31 on a list of “Top Performers on Social Mobility.” The list ranks colleges that do well at both enrolling economically disadvantaged students who are awarded Pell Grants and then graduating them. Fresno Pacific University, a private school, ranked third on this list. Many other schools in the CSU system made the list, including CSU-Long Beach which came in ranked No. 2.
CSUB made the rankings of regional lists in the West. It was No. 52 in “Regional Universities.” Among “Top Public Schools,” it ranked No. 24.
Its engineering programming was also given a nod, making No. 91 in “Best Undergraduate Engineering.”
This is the 36th year of the college rankings from U.S. News and World Report, which says it weighs 17 different factors when calculating rankings. Some calculations are a bit more cut-and-dry like graduation rates. Others, like peer reputation, which accounts for 20 percent of scores, are more qualitative.