Huffman Named Superior Court Judge by Governor

Richard D. Huffman, the lead prosecutor in Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s felony perjury and conspiracy case, was appointed a Superior Court judge Wednesday by Gov. George Deukmejian.

The appointment, which fills a new San Diego Superior Court judicial slot created by the Legislature last year, means the San Diego County district attorney’s office will lose the prosecutor most intimately acquainted with the complicated Hedgecock case. Huffman nursed it from its early stages before two grand juries, and he handled the prosecution during the mayor’s first trial, which ended Feb. 13 in a hung jury.

Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller said Wednesday that Huffman’s departure from his office will not hamper preparations for the second trial, scheduled to begin Aug. 22.

The Hedgecock case will fall to Deputy Dist. Atty. S. Charles Wickersham, who assisted Huffman during the first trial. Miller said he “never considered” asking Huffman to delay taking a judicial appointment to try Hedgecock once more.

“He’s wanted that judgeship for some time and I wasn’t about to hinder the appointment in any way,” Miller said. “We’ve got attorneys here who are experienced and will do just fine in the Hedgecock case.”

Miller also said Huffman’s appointment would not open the door for any plea bargain negotiations in the Hedgecock case.

Huffman, 46, was in Washington late Wednesday where he is to serve on a review panel for research proposals made to the National Institute of Justice. He said

Deukmejian called him Monday morning about the appointment, which had been rumored for months.

He said he expects to be sworn in next week, in a position he said he is assuming with “mixed emotions” because of the pending retrial of Hedgecock.

“The case is not finished,” he said. “I feel like I’m walking away before the music is finished. That is frustrating . . . . It’s time for me to go on to another chapter.”

Huffman said he never thought seriously about waiting to take a judicial appointment until after a second Hedgecock trial. Although it is scheduled to start in August, he predicted it will not be held this year.

Hedgecock, reached in Toronto where he is attending an Urban Land Institute conference, declined comment on what Huffman’s departure would mean for his criminal case.

However, the news left Hedgecock’s new defense attorney, Oscar B. Goodman of Las Vegas, disappointed.

“I’m very happy for Mr. Huffman and very sorry for me,” said the flashy Goodman, who is known for his hard-driving courtroom style.

“I was looking forward to the battle . . . . It was Mr. Huffman that I was gearing my resources against. I may have to step back and reassess the situation. I’ve been thinking in terms of Mr. Huffman being a very aggressive prosecutor, putting on a very aggressive case and then coming back.”

Huffman’s judicial appointment makes complete the change in lead attorneys in the controversial case. In April, Hedgecock substituted Goodman for Michael Pancer, who defended him during the first trial.

Known for his sarcastic, self-deprecating manner, Huffman worked between 1966 and 1971 for the state attorney general’s office, where he helped prosecute Aladena (Jimmy the Weasel) Fratianno, convicted in 1970 of conspiracy to commit theft.

During the case, Huffman worked closely with the U.S. attorney’s office, then under Miller’s direction. Miller won election as the county district attorney in 1970 and Huffman joined his staff in 1971. Ten years later, Huffman was named Miller’s top assistant.

Huffman earns $72,900 a year supervising an office with an $18-million budget and a staff of 500. In taking the judicial position, Huffman will take a $100-a-year pay cut and lose the use of a county car.

Huffman obtained the 1979 conviction of Robert Alton Harris for the murders of two San Diego teen-agers. Harris is on death row awaiting the outcome of appeals.

But the Hedgecock prosecution was Huffman’s most celebrated case.

When it ended in a mistrial with the jury voting 11-1 for conviction on all counts, Huffman immediately blamed himself for giving the mayor a reprieve on 13 felony conspiracy and perjury counts.

Huffman said he gave Hedgecock the advantage in the case when the prosecutor failed to heed his instincts early in the proceedings and challenge the seating of juror Leon Crowder, the city sanitation employee who held out for the mayor’s innocence. “The case was lost the moment his behind hit the chair,” Huffman was to say later.

The highlight of Huffman’s work came during closing arguments, capping weeks of sometimes tedious testimony. Huffman’s common-sense, occasionally dramatic closing arguments tied together the loose ends of the case and presented a tapestry of alleged conspiracy and duplicity.

Wickersham said Wednesday that his courtroom style will differ from Huffman’s. While Huffman made his name in prosecuting organized crime figures and murderers, Wickersham has spent much of his 19 years in the district attorney’s office working on less-spectacular, technical fraud cases.

One of those cases ended in June, 1983, when San Diego attorney Robert E. Kronemyer was sentenced to eight years in prison and fined $80,000 for taking more than $1 million from the estate of an elderly client. Wickersham obtained the conviction on 16 felony counts, and the maximum sentence, by arguing that Kronemyer had used his position of trust to loot the estate.

Wickersham said he was assigned to the Hedgecock case “at the last minute . . . . I didn’t get involved in it until it was almost at trial. I generally assisted in terms of strategy and how we were going to proceed. We were constantly debating how to handle witnesses, how to limit their testimony, that sort of thing.

“I did not play a major role, quite frankly.”

Wickersham also said his replacement of Huffman on the case “helps and it hurts. It helps on the more technical aspects of the case, but it might hurt on the more flamboyant side of the case. I’m not used to trying cases in a fishbowl.”

Asked how he felt about facing Goodman, a defense attorney with a national reputation for winning cases, Wickersham said:

“I, quite frankly, stand in awe of the man. I’m sure he’s quite well-equipped to handle the case. We’ll see. Evidence make cases.”