The 5th District Court of Appeal has upheld the murder conviction of Leslie Chance, a Bakersfield elementary school principal who killed her husband.
The panel of judges concluded a Kern County Sheriff's deputy who investigated the case should have disclosed information to defense attorneys about interviews he conducted, but that didn't warrant a reversal of the murder conviction, according to the opinion released Friday.
Chance was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for shooting her husband in August 2013 after he exchanged salacious texts with an ex-girlfriend. She planned the murder for weeks, prosecutors said, including by incorporating information she learned at a CSI exhibit in Las Vegas and disguising herself after disposing her dead husband, Todd Chance, in a orchard.
The appeals opinion turned away claims arguing evidence about the CSI exhibit and disguises should be tossed out. It added the sheriff's deputy should have provided defense attorney information about an interview he conducted that favored Chance.
Prosecutors didn't know the deputy excluded such evidence and there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct, the opinion said.
Chance was principal of Fairview Elementary School in the Greenfield Union School District. She was first arrested in 2013 after her husband's body was found by an orchard worker. But Chance was released after prosecutors sought more evidence. She was arrested again in December 2016.
The former elementary school teacher and principal was sentenced in January 2020.