Grand Jury Issues 2 Murder Indictments : Prop. 115: Both defendants are charged as a result of the 1990 citizens initiative designed to speed up court procedures and impose tougher sentences.

SANTA ANA —  The Orange County grand jury has charged two people with murder in separate cases, the first such indictments returned by the panel since the passage of a citizens initiative aimed at ensuring speedier trials.

The first murder indictment by the grand jury was handed down Thursday against Marchelle Lynn Black, a 28-year-old woman who was charged with killing her newborn baby, a year after her husband discovered the dead infant in a plastic bag in a bedroom closet.

The second murder indictment was returned Friday against Paul Michael Crowder in the prom night shooting of a La Crescenta high school basketball player, prosecutors said.

Both actions were the result of Proposition 115, the so-called Crime Victims initiative passed by California voters in 1990. The initiative was designed to speed up court procedures and to require judges to impose tougher sentences, among other things. A grand jury indictment allows cases to go directly to trial without preliminary hearings, which can last for weeks.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Wallace J. Wade, who worked with the grand jury for 4 1/2 years before moving to the district attorney’s South County office two weeks ago, said late Friday: “It will certainly speed up the process. Depending on the complexity of the case, we’re going to save from one day to weeks of court time.”

Wade said he could not say whether the district attorney’s office would seek more indictments under Proposition 115.

“We’ve been employing some of the mechanisms of 115 since its passage,” Wade said. “But there have been attacks against the proposition up and down the state, and I guess that we were waiting to make sure that the basic elements of 115 were approved by the state Supreme Court.” The Orange County district attorney took the Black case to the grand jury a year after the same office ordered the mother of three released following her arrest on suspicion of murder.

Black was arrested at her new Riverside home on Friday and was being held at the Orange County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.

She was first arrested last June, not long after her husband rushed her to Pioneer Hospital when she began hemorrhaging. Nurses there told police that the woman had just given birth but was being evasive about the whereabouts of her newborn, Cypress Police Sgt. Gordon Re said.

Investigators went to the woman’s home in the 5600 block of Bishop Street, but her husband, Jeffrey Black, told investigators he did not know that his wife was pregnant. The husband, however, later telephoned police to report that he had just found a dead baby in his closet. Police later alleged that she had hidden her pregnancy from family and friends for nine months.

After the discovery, police arrested Marchelle Black, but she was released two days later pending specific autopsy results and an additional investigation, Re said.

“It’s a story of a tragedy for her and her family . . . for everyone,” Re said.

Crowder, 19, is accused of fatally shooting Berlyn Cosman, 17, a standout basketball player for Crescenta Valley High School. The girl was shot on June 1 as she slept on a couch in an Anaheim hotel room, where she had gone with several friends to celebrate after their senior prom.

Crowder, a former high school football player, had been acquainted with Cosman, according to friends, and had played basketball with her in several pick-up games. He reportedly had been dating one of her teammates.

Friends of Crowder who were at the scene have said the shooting was accidental. But prosecutors said Crowder had waved a gun wildly and threatened to shoot others that evening.

At a June 19 bail hearing, Crowder pleaded innocent to murder charges but was held in lieu of $250,000 bail.