Can Renew Request Later : Mayor Loses Bid to Bar D.A. From Trial

The state Supreme Court refused Wednesday to consider San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s request to remove Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller’s office from the mayor’s perjury retrial, but said Hedgecock could renew the request later.

Hedgecock’s first trial on charges of lying about campaign contributions ended in a hung jury in February. He is trying to disqualify both Miller and Superior Court Judge William Todd from his second trial, scheduled to begin Aug. 22.

Hedgecock contends Miller, a longtime political opponent, filed the charges because of bias.

The Supreme Court unanimously denied a hearing Wednesday on Hedgecock’s appeal from a lower-court ruling refusing to remove Miller or to order evidence produced on the mayor’s claim of discriminatory prosecution.

But the court said Hedgecock could seek a new hearing after the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego disposed of the other pending motions in his case.

The appeals court refused earlier this month to reduce some of Hedgecock’s felony perjury charges to misdemeanors and is still considering the mayor’s request to remove Todd from the case.

Todd is scheduled to hold a hearing Monday on whether to consolidate the two cases against Hedgecock--two new felony perjury charges and a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge filed by Miller, and the grand jury indictment on 12 counts of perjury and one of conspiracy that was the subject of the first trial.

The charges all allege concealment or non-disclosure of contributions to Hedgecock’s 1983 campaign for mayor. Among the alleged conspirators is financier J. David Dominelli.