KILLER OF ACCUSED MOLESTER SET FREE.

Byline: Matthew Yi Associated Press

Ellie Nesler, who ignited a national debate on vigilante justice when she killed her son's alleged molester, was ordered freed from prison Wednesday.

Tuolumne County Superior Court Judge Eric DuTemple agreed to Nesler's release on a plea bargain agreement in which she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Nesler received a seven-year prison sentence, making her eligible for parole immediately under California law because she has served more than half the sentence.

Nesler was released Wednesday afternoon from a facility in Jamestown, near Sonora. At a news conference later outside the courthouse, Nesler apologized for her actions.

'' ... From the bottom of my heart, I feel sorry for what I've done,'' she said.

Her 16-year-old son, Willie, said he last saw his mother on Mother's Day.

``I've grown up a lot the last couple of years,'' he said. ``I miss my Mom a lot. Now I want to make the best of it.''

Attorney General Dan Lungren issued a statement Wednesday noting that Nesler would have been eligible for parole in any case in January 1999 under her old sentence. He also said retrying the sanity issue more than four years later would have been difficult.

But Lungren emphasized he did not condone vigilantism.

``We will stand for the rule of the law over the rule of the mob,'' the attorney general said.

Nesler, now 45, has terminal breast cancer and has said previously she hoped to be released to spend time with her daughter and now teen-age son before she dies.

Nesler fired five gunshots into the back of 35-year-old Daniel Driver's head on April 2, 1993. Driver was in court in this Sierra Nevada Gold Rush county 150 miles west of San Francisco a preliminary hearing on charges of molesting four boys.

Some people hailed Nesler as a heroine, but others were outraged that she took the law into her own hands, igniting a nationwide debate on vigilante justice.

Shortly after the shooting, Nesler told a sheriff's investigator, ``I don't have a right to play God, but this man didn't have the right to molest little boys and take away their innocence.''

Nesler pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to first-degree murder. She was acquitted of murder, but the jury found her guilty of manslaughter, and she received a 10-year sentence in January 1994.

This August, the California Supreme Court granted a retrial of the sanity phase on grounds of juror misconduct. Nesler's attorney, Paul Couenhoven, charged that a juror repeatedly brought up information not entered as evidence during the sanity hearing.

After the Supreme Court decision, prosecutors agreed not to retry the case in return for the plea bargain agreement entered Wednesday.`

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Photo: Ellie Nesler is greeted by her son William after her prison release.

Associated Press