U.S. Refuses a Last-Ditch Appeal by C. Arnholt Smith

C. Arnholt Smith, the 85-year-old San Diego financier who once ruled a billion-dollar financial empire, lost a last-ditch bid Monday for review by the Supreme Court of his conviction for tax fraud and embezzlement.

After five years of legal maneuvering, Smith went to jail last November to begin serving a one-year sentence for four counts of income tax fraud and for stealing nearly $9 million from one of several companies he owned. Two weeks ago, Smith was moved from the San Diego County Jail to an honor farm, where will serve the rest of his sentence working as a gardener.

The justices, in a brief order, refused to hear a claim by lawyers for Smith that he had been the victim of discriminatory prosecution by San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller because he supported Miller’s opponent in the 1970 election. Smith’s lawyers also maintained that it was legally impossible to embezzle from a company one owns.

At one time, Smith was one of the most prominent and powerful figures in the state. His business empire included ownership of the San Diego Padres baseball club, the Yellow Cab Co. of San Diego and the now-bankrupt U.S. National Bank. He was named “Mr. San Diego” in 1966.

But in the early 1970s, Smith’s fortunes went into decline amid speculation about impending criminal prosecution. He was charged and underwent an eight-month trial in 1979. After conviction, he began a series of appeals, ending with Monday’s refusal by the high court to hear his claims (Smith vs. California, 84-789).

In other California cases Monday, the court:

Refused to hear a challenge to the constitutionality of provisions of the state Agricultural Labor Relations Act allowing the firing of members of the United Farm Workers union for crossing the union’s picket line. Lawyers for two workers who were dismissed under a union-employer contract reached after a 1979 UFW strike contended that although workers in union shops could be required to pay dues, it was a violation of their constitutional right to association to force them to support strikes or other union goals.

A state court of appeal in San Francisco rejected the workers’ claims, finding that passage of the act did not amount to sufficient state action to justify a challenge on constitutional grounds. The high court dismissed the workers’ subsequent appeal, citing a lack of jurisdiction (Pasillas vs. state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, 84-739, Navarro vs. ALRB, 84-746).

Declined to hear an appeal by Allan Wilk, a Rancho Palos Verdes mobile home park owner, contending that he was the victim of selective prosecution by authorities who charged him with violating the Los Angeles city rent moratorium law of 1978.

Wilk’s lawyer, Harvard University law professor Laurence H. Tribe, argued that city officials had given other landlords a final opportunity to comply with the ordinance but had denied the same chance to Wilk because he was a vocal opponent of the ordinance. City attorneys denied the allegation, replying that Wilk had been treated fairly (Wilk vs. California, 84-632).