Decision on the Start of Mayor’s 2nd Trial Delayed

A Superior Court judge on Friday delayed a decision on the starting date of Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s second trial until Feb. 28 to give the mayor time to decide whether he wants to change attorneys for his retrial.

However, regardless of whether Hedgecock keeps Michael Pancer or selects a different lawyer, it appears likely that the mayor’s retrial on felony conspiracy and perjury charges will not begin until late spring or early summer.

Pancer, who represented Hedgecock in the seven-week case that ended Wednesday in a mistrial with the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction, told Judge Barbara T. Gamer on Friday that his commitments to other clients would make it impossible for him to retry the case until July. Pancer also asked Gamer to delay a decision on the timetable for Hedgecock’s retrial until March 14, the date of a hearing on two other perjury counts facing the mayor.

After Assistant Dist. Atty. Richard D. Huffman objected to a one-month delay, saying the retrial is “too important to wait . . . that long,” Gamer decided to give Hedgecock two weeks to determine whether Pancer will handle the second trial.

“We are ready to proceed, and we think it’s time to put this case to rest,” Huffman said after Friday’s hearing. The prosecutor added that he hopes the retrial can begin no later than April--a timetable that appears unlikely regardless of whom Hedgecock chooses to represent him.

Pancer’s schedule includes two other cases not expected to end until May, after which he would need time to prepare for the mayor’s retrial. Furthermore, if Hedgecock were to select a different attorney for the retrial, that lawyer would need several months to familiarize himself with the case.

“If he changes lawyers, it’s going to be tough to move this case before the summer,” Huffman conceded. Huffman, who is scheduled to teach a law course in England this summer, added that he is not certain whether he will retry the case for the district attorney’s office.

Hedgecock said Friday that he is leaning toward having Pancer retry the trial, and Pancer insisted that he is eager to stay on the case.

“I see cases through to the end,” Pancer said. “I don’t leave clients in the middle of the case.”

He added that if he continues to represent Hedgecock, he will be assisted by lawyer Juanita Brooks.

The charges facing Hedgecock allege that he intentionally falsified financial disclosure statements to cover up tens of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions from former J. David & Co. principals Nancy Hoover and J. David (Jerry) Dominelli. The money, prosecutors charge, was funneled into Hedgecock’s 1983 campaign via a political consulting firm owned by Tom Shepard, a close friend of the mayor.

Hedgecock, however, argues that the $361,500 that Hoover and Dominelli invested in Shepard’s firm was designed primarily to help him start his own business. The errors and omissions on his financial reports, the mayor contends, were inadvertent mistakes.

A preliminary hearing in the case of Hoover, Dominelli and Shepard, who were indicted along with Hedgecock on Sept. 19, is scheduled for next month.

Although prosecutors hope to combine Hedgecock’s retrial with the trial of his three alleged co-conspirators, Huffman said Friday that the chance of that occurring “does not look too great” because of anticipated delays in the other three defendants’ pre-trial hearings.

Both defense and prosecution attorneys have said that the intense news media coverage of the inconclusive end to Hedgecock’s trial--and, in particular, to how close the six-man, six-woman jury came to convicting the mayor--could make selection of an impartial jury considerably more difficult in the retrial.

Hedgecock, however, said he does not plan to ask that the trial be tried elsewhere.

“This is my city, this is where I live,” Hedgecock said. “People know me here. It may be that we’ll never find 12 people who agree one way or the other, but I think it’s important that we have this trial in San Diego.”

Huffman, meanwhile, reacted angrily Friday to Hedgecock’s and Pancer’s frequent post-trial statements that the case against the mayor stems from a political vendetta being waged by the district attorney’s office and the San Diego Union. Those claims, Huffman said, are “the same garbage” and the “biggest crock . . . in this trial.”

“Frankly, if you heard this in any other environment, we’d be looking for an examination . . . for mental competence, but because it’s a political environment, that has currency,” Huffman said. “This continuous line of propaganda bull about this being a political case ought to now be put behind us, and let’s get down to the merits: Did he commit a crime or did he not?”