Burroughs Aims to Clear His Name by Testifying

The attorney for the bailiff accused of tampering with Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s jury said Thursday that his client is willing to testify in court “to clear . . . his good name” and will deny that he improperly interfered with the jury’s deliberations.

Meanwhile, in an increasingly hectic race against the clock to prevent Hedgecock’s possible ouster from office next week, the mayor’s attorneys asked the 4th District Court of Appeal on Thursday to delay any further hearings in the case until it rules on a defense request that Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. be removed from the case. The appeal court’s decision on whether to postpone Monday’s new-trial hearing is expected today.

Earlier this week, Todd, who presided over both of Hedgecock’s trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury and the second in the mayor’s 13-count felony conviction, refused to disqualify himself from ruling on the new-trial motion.

Describing Todd as “both the employer . . . and friend” of Al Burroughs Jr., the bailiff accused of jury tampering, Hedgecock’s attorney, Charles Sevilla, argued that allowing Todd to preside over next week’s hearing would be comparable “to having (Los Angeles Dodger manager) Tommy Lasorda umpire all the Dodger-Padre games next year.”

“The law in this area is pretty simple,” Sevilla said. “The law says that if there is the appearance of non-impartiality . . . a judge should not hear the case. We believe that Judge Todd (should) not hear . . . a matter which involves the alleged misconduct of his own employee and friend.”

Sevilla filed his request for a writ of mandate shortly after Burroughs’ attorney, Anthony Beccarelli, sent a letter to Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller on Thursday. The letter states that the bailiff is willing to testify at the new-trial hearing and will deny all allegations of wrongdoing. It was the bailiff’s first detailed comment on the allegations since the charges surfaced two weeks ago.

“Mr. Burroughs would . . . welcome the opportunity to categorically deny and refute all allegations or insinuations of wrongful conduct attributed to him by any person or persons,” Beccarelli said in the two-page letter. “Mr. Burroughs desires to clear from his good name, and the judicial process, the unwarranted taint associated with these false allegations.”

In the wake of prosecutors’ contention earlier this week that Burroughs did nothing improper, the bailiff will not insist on immunity before testifying, Beccarelli added.

While Oscar Goodman, Hedgecock’s lead attorney, has said that testimony from Burroughs and bailiff Holly Murlin, who also supervised the jury, is needed “to help get the full picture” surrounding the tampering allegations, it is not clear whether Todd will allow the bailiffs to take the witness stand.

On Wednesday, Todd ruled that testimony from the jurors would not be allowed at the hearing Monday, but he left open the possibility that the bailiffs might testify, stating that he plans to base his decision on the jurors’ sworn affidavits “and whatever other evidence is submitted by the parties at the time of the hearing.”

Burroughs and Murlin were questioned by prosecutors Thursday and are expected to file sworn declarations today, according to Steve Casey, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.

Casey said that Murlin, like Burroughs, “specifically and categorically denied any and all allegations and insinuations of wrongdoing” in her interview.

Hedgecock’s attorneys, however, vigorously disputed Casey’s description of Murlin’s potential testimony. After their own interview with the woman bailiff, the mayor’s attorneys said that Murlin corroborated one juror’s charge that Burroughs had told her that the jury had to reach a verdict and confirmed other key details included in the jury-tampering allegations.

Thursday’s developments came as drama surrounding the uncertainty over Hedgecock’s legal and political fate moved inexorably toward its conclusion--or, perhaps, simply another delay or bizarre twist.

The mayor’s case was thrown into legal limbo when jurors Kathy Saxton-Calderwood and Stanley J. Bohensky signed sworn statements alleging that Burroughs, in violation of court rules, talked with jurors on numerous occasions about the case and the progress in their 6 1/2-day deliberations. However, sworn documents from the 10 other jurors, filed Monday by the district attorney’s office, disputed those allegations and have been cited by Miller as proof that “there was nothing even remotely approaching jury tampering.”

Both Bohensky and Saxton-Calderwood have said that Burroughs, among other alleged improprieties, told jurors an anecdote about another case that dealt with the legal term of “reasonable doubt.”

In addition, Bohensky said that the bailiff told him how to interpret jury instructions, asked him to “take notes . . . on unreasonable jurors,” and urged jurors to “reach a speedy verdict” because of the costliness of the hotel in which they were sequestered during deliberations.

Saxton-Calderwood, meanwhile, alleges that she overheard Burroughs referring to her as one of the jurors “holding up” deliberations, and that the bailiff said that Todd was “calling every day to see if” jurors were making progress.

Burroughs’ attorney said Thursday that “trying to figure out” the two jurors’ allegations “is like playing catch with Jello.”

“Saxton-Calderwood’s comments are so off base . . . that I’m going to assume she’s simply off in left field,” Beccarelli said. “As to Mr. Bohensky, he apparently was in a different deliberation than everyone else because he saw and heard things no one else did.”

Beccarelli added that he probably will not allow Hedgecock’s attorneys to interview Burroughs before any hearing, “because they’ve said a number of insulting things about Mr. Burroughs.” Goodman, for example, once characterized the bailiff as an “ agent provocateur .”

In asking the state appellate court to postpone the new-trial hearing until Todd’s status is determined, Hedgecock’s attorneys stressed that the court’s immediate ruling is needed to prevent the mayor’s possible ouster from office.

If Monday’s hearing is not delayed and Hedgecock’s motion for a new trial is rejected, Todd is scheduled to sentence the mayor Wednesday on his conviction on conspiracy and perjury charges stemming from alleged illegal contributions to his 1983 mayoral campaign. Under state law, Hedgecock, who faces a maximum eight years’ imprisonment, would be automatically ousted from office at the time of sentencing and would not regain his office even if his conviction were ultimately overturned on appeal.

The main options available to the appeal court, Sevilla said, include granting or rejecting the defense’s request for a stay of next week’s hearing, ordering Todd to disqualify himself, or instructing another judge to rule on whether Todd should hear the case.

Conceivably, the court also could simply remain silent on the issue today--though Sevilla, noting that the appellate judges realize that doing so would mean that “the damage (possibly) would have been done” if they delay, said that he doubted that that would happen.

In his 109-page brief, Sevilla pointed out that Todd “should be a witness” at the new-trial hearing because the jurors’ statements “indicate . . . inferentially that Mr. Burroughs was in communication with the judge” during deliberations, raising the possibility of impropriety on Todd’s part. In addition, after the jury-tampering allegations surfaced, Burroughs stated that he wanted to confer with Todd before commenting on the charges.

When he refused to step down from the case Monday, Todd also ruled that the defense could not call him to testify at the new-trial hearing.

“Impartial weighing of the motion for new trial is distorted when exercised by a judge who has to rule on the propriety of his regular courtroom staff and his own role as a witness,” Sevilla wrote in the brief. “The . . . mechanism for disqualification (of judges) cannot be so easily short-circuited that a judge could be put in a position of protecting his bailiff and possibly himself from overreaching.”

If the Court of Appeal rejects the defense’s request, Sevilla conceded, “it would be virtually impossible” to remove Todd from the Monday hearing and, if Hedgecock’s request for a new trial is denied, to prevent the mayor’s ouster.

“There’s nothing to do . . . other than a jet plane ride to the Supreme Court trying to do something, but that’s really going to be pressing it,” Sevilla said. “This is it for the most part.”