State to Probe Hedgecock Case Jury Allegations

Acting one day before Roger Hedgecock was scheduled to resign as mayor, the state attorney general’s office Thursday agreed to investigate jury-tampering charges that could lead to the reversal of Hedgecock’s felony conviction.

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, San Diego County Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller Jr. and Marshal Michael Sgobba called for an investigation by the attorney general into allegations that a court bailiff tampered with the jury during its deliberations. The statement added that the state attorney general had agreed to investigate the charges.

New Trial Sought

Meanwhile, Hedgecock’s staff said his office was deluged with calls urging him not to resign today, and his attorney, Oscar Goodman, filed a motion in Superior Court requesting a new trial.

Buoyed by the reported public support in the wake of the dramatic turn in his case, Hedgecock closeted himself at City Hall with his top advisers. He weighed perhaps the most critical decision in a 9-year political career that last week appeared to be in shambles after his conviction of one count of conspiracy and 12 counts of perjury.

Throughout the day, Hedgecock polled City Council members to find out whether they would support him if he were to drop his plan, announced two days after his conviction, to resign at 5 p.m. today.

Late Thursday, a source close to Hedgecock said the mayor probably would “postpone or at least extend the deadline” for his planned resignation.

“I’d be very surprised if he didn’t decide to hang around to find out what happens” on Goodman’s request for a new trial, the source said.

In the meantime, San Diego marveled at the newest--and, to many, improbable--upturn in the legal and political fortunes of Hedgecock, who has displayed a recurring ability to land on his feet in a career punctuated by frequent controversy.

“If I was an author and went into my publisher with this script, he’d throw it out as totally unbelievable,” said City Councilman Ed Struiksma, one of the mayor’s leading opponents on the council and viewed as a potential mayoral candidate if Hedgecock resigns or is ousted from office. “It’s bizarre. It defies explanation.”

“As someone said to me this morning, that guy really does have 10 lives,” said political consultant David Lewis.

The uncertainty over Hedgecock’s fate stems from disclosures Thursday that one juror and the attorney for another have signed sworn statements alleging that a bailiff tampered with Hedgecock’s jury during its deliberations.

Michael Pancer, another attorney for Hedgecock, said that he received information Thursday from at least two additional jurors “that confirm the essential allegations contained in our motion for a new trial.” Pancer, however, declined to identify those jurors or to specify whether they, too, are willing to sign sworn statements detailing their allegations and, subsequently, testify in court.

Questions Asked of Bailiff

But another juror, Dolores Pickering, told The Times Thursday that “there were several relatively minor questions that were blurted out to” bailiff Al Burroughs Jr. by jurors, particularly during the early phases of deliberations.

Burroughs’ response, Pickering said, “was initially to kind of back off and give it some thought and make a brief response to whatever the question was.” One such question posed to Burroughs concerned the definition of reasonable doubt, Pickering said--a comment that appears to further corroborate details included in the sworn statements.

”. . . While I did not pay attention to the specifics of what he said, I would have been well aware if he had said anything out of line or out of the ordinary,” Pickering explained.

Describing the jurors who came forward as “unwitting dupes to an agent provacateur, “ Hedgecock attorney Goodman Thursday requested that the mayor be granted a new trial because of the allegedly improper contact between Burroughs and the jurors. Burroughs refused to comment Thursday.

The purported improprieties, Goodman said at a news conference, constitute jury tampering and obstruction of justice. Goodman added that the allegations conceivably could lead to outright dismissal of the case against Hedgecock.

“No crimes are more offensive than these in the system of criminal justice, because they go to the very heart and the very integrity of the system,” Goodman said.

Grounds for a Reversal

His “reading of the law,” Goodman said, is that the “mere contact” between the bailiff and the jurors is sufficient grounds for a judge to overturn a verdict--regardless of whether such “improper communications” affected any jurors’ decisions.

“We are confident that . . . the court will have no alternative under the case law of the state of California but to grant Mayor Hedgecock a new trial,” Goodman said. “There will be no room for any decision other than a new trial to be made under these circumstances.”

Other lawyers, however, argued Thursday that Hedgecock’s attorneys may have a difficult time persuading a judge to overturn the jury’s verdict, even if the allegations included in the sworn statements are verified in court.

“I find courts hell-bent on preserving the verdict at all costs,” said lawyer John Cleary. “My bet is that the institutional bias is so powerful, I can almost next to guarantee there won’t be a retrial.”

Councilman Bill Mitchell, one of at least two council members called by Hedgecock on Thursday, said: “He sounded really up. His voice was really chipper and crisp, like it used to be.” Mitchell said he told the mayor: “ ‘I don’t want to make that kind of decision. It’s up to you.’ He said he’d think about it for 24 hours and let us know.”

One source close to Hedgecock said the mayor was being lobbied by “large numbers of people” giving him a “range” of advice on what to do.

Thrust of Advice

Those suggestions, the source said, included asking Hedgecock to resign and start over with a “clean slate” politically, while attempting to use the latest twist in the case to reopen plea-bargain negotiations and force “concessions” from Miller. Other close advisers, however, are urging Hedgecock to remain in office and fight.

Councilman William Jones, who also received a telephone call from Hedgecock Thursday, said he told the mayor that it would be “wise” for him to delay his resignation until he can determine whether the tampering allegations are true.

“Otherwise, he’ll second-guess himself for the rest of his life,” Jones said.

Hedgecock canceled a press conference with local television stations Thursday--originally scheduled as a kind of farewell address--as calls of support poured into his office, said Mel Buxbaum, the mayor’s press secretary.

J. Michael McDade, former chief of staff for Hedgecock and still an adviser to the mayor, said that by 5 p.m. Thursday Hedgecock’s office had received 946 calls urging him not to resign and 46 calling on him to leave office.

Sworn Statements

The jury-tampering allegations are included in sworn statements signed by juror Kathy Saxton-Calderwood and by San Diego lawyer John N. Learnard, who represents another juror whom he has declined to identify. Court records show that Learnard has represented juror Stanley J. Bohensky in other legal matters.

The statements allege that Burroughs helped the jurors define the crucial legal term of “reasonable doubt” and persistently pressed them during their 6 1/2-day deliberations to reach a verdict, rather than deadlocking as did the jury in Hedgecock’s first trial.

In addition, Burroughs, a San Diego County deputy marshal, asked one juror for the names of other jurors who were slowing down the deliberations by “holding out,” and referred to Saxton-Calderwood as “trouble” after she complained to another bailiff about Burroughs, the sworn documents said. On other occasions, Goodman said, Burroughs drank alcoholic beverages with the jurors and held “secret meetings” with jurors.

Meeting With Foreman

Jury Foreman Richard Stark and his attorney met with Hedgecock’s two attorneys Thursday, but it was not clear if Stark, a bank executive, is one of the two additional jurors providing corroboration to the allegations included in the sworn statements.

In his motion for a new trial, Goodman requested that Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. remove himself from the Nov. 4 hearing, noting that Todd might be called to testify and that Burroughs is “an arm of his court.” The defense attorney also requested that Burroughs be allowed to testify under a grant of immunity so that “the truth will out.”

The argument embraced by Hedgecock’s lawyers is founded upon decisions by the U.S. and California Supreme Courts that create a presumption that any tampering with a jury is harmful to the defendant.

In one 1969 case, the California Supreme Court reversed a man’s conviction on a charge of possessing marijuana, in part because it concluded that a bailiff had put undue pressure on the jurors by angrily warning them they would be “locked up overnight” if they did not reach a quick verdict.

‘Far Less Inflammatory’

That remark, Goodman contends, was “far less inflammatory” than Burroughs’ alleged admonitions to the Hedgecock jurors against failing to reach a verdict in the mayor’s retrial.

At the Nov. 4 hearing, either Judge Todd--or another judge, if Todd excuses himself--first will have to decide if the alleged incidents of tampering occurred, said Paul Bell, a San Diego attorney who represents defendants in appeals.

If the answer is yes, the judge then must determine if the interference affected the jurors’ verdict, Bell said. That review cannot take into account the jurors’ opinions on the impact of the tampering on their deliberations, because those discussions are sacrosanct--exempt from second guessing, Bell said.

Though by law the judge must start out presuming that any tampering prejudiced the jurors against Hedgecock, “it’s pretty easy to rebut that presumption,” Bell said. Cleary added that a judge simply can decide that Burroughs’ comments had no significant impact on the jurors’ decision.

Learnard, 45, said Thursday that he has no political ax to grind either for or against Hedgecock. He did say, though, that he is a friend of McDade’s, whom he met while attending St. Augustine High School in the 1950s.

It was McDade whom Learnard called after hearing the juror’s story and after consulting with the State Bar. McDade then put him in touch with Goodman.

“A client simply gave me certain information, the State Bar indicated I had certain obligations and that was it,” said Learnard, a sole practitioner.

Times staff writer Jim Schachter also contributed to this story.