Thursday, April 30, 2026

Woman Convicted in 2007 Altadena Killing Returns to Court Under Reformed Murder Laws

Mesha Dean, serving 49 years to life for shooting a man during a custody confrontation, seeks resentencing in a proceeding scheduled for Thursday morning

Nineteen years after a man was shot and killed on a cul-de-sac in Altadena while trying to stop two women from taking his 4-year-old nephew, the woman convicted of pulling the trigger is back in a Los Angeles courtroom, asking a judge to reconsider her sentence under laws that did not exist when she was convicted.

A status conference in the case of Mesha Arshaz Dean is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Thursday in Department 110 of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center at 210 W. Temple St. in Los Angeles. The hearing, before Judge Lisa B. Lench, is a procedural step in a multi-stage process under California Penal Code Section 1172.6 that could result in Dean’s murder conviction being vacated or her sentence reduced — or, if prosecutors prove she remains guilty under current legal standards, the petition being denied.

Dean was 25 when a jury convicted her on March 26, 2012, of second-degree murder, kidnapping and child endangerment for the March 18, 2007, fatal shooting of Monroe “Monty” Miles Jr., 32, at 4023 Canyon Dell Drive in Altadena. She was sentenced to 49 years and four months to life in state prison.

The shooting grew out of a custody dispute. Dean and her partner, Vanessa Marie Ochoa, had driven from Henderson, Nevada, to retrieve Ochoa’s son, who was staying with his father’s family. Miles, the child’s uncle, was caring for the boy while the father was out of town, according to court records.

A confrontation erupted when Miles tried to prevent them from taking the child. Prosecutors said Miles was unarmed. At trial, Deputy District Attorney Tamu Usher told the jury that Dean had come prepared with a loaded gun. Miles was shot and died about an hour later at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, according to court records reported by Altadena Now.

Dean’s defense attorney, Ed Murphy, argued at trial that Dean acted in self-defense, contending that Miles had become physically violent during the confrontation. Prosecutors maintained that Miles was acting as a concerned relative trying to protect his nephew from being taken without permission, according to Pasadena Now reporting on the case.

Dean and Ochoa fled to Nevada after the shooting and were arrested two days later in Las Vegas. The child was found unharmed. Ochoa pleaded guilty in August 2010 to voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping and child endangerment and was sentenced to 15 years in state prison, according to Patch.

Dean’s direct appeals were exhausted in 2014 when the California Supreme Court declined to review her case, following a rejection by the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Her current petition falls under PC 1172.6, a provision created by Senate Bill 1437, signed by Governor Jerry Brown in 2018, and expanded by SB 775, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021. The laws reformed California’s felony murder rule and eliminated the natural and probable consequences doctrine for murder liability.

Under the revised statute, a person can be convicted of murder only if she was the actual killer, acted with intent to kill, or was a major participant in the underlying felony who acted with reckless indifference to human life, according to the text of the statute. Dean’s conviction involved a shooting during a felony kidnapping. Her legal team is arguing that under current law, she could not have been convicted of murder under the theory used at trial, according to Altadena Now reporting on the case.

Prosecutors have the opportunity to contest the petition by proving that Dean remains guilty under the current legal standards.

Dean has appeared in court multiple times since filing the petition, including hearings in March and July 2025, consistent with the multi-stage PC 1172.6 process, according to Altadena Now.

The Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center is at 210 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. The Criminal Clerk’s Office can be reached at (213) 628-7900.

Canyon Dell Drive, where the shooting took place, is a residential cul-de-sac in the foothills of Altadena — the kind of street where a gunshot would have been heard by every neighbor on the block.