State Will Not Prosecute Bailiff in Hedgecock Case

In a setback to Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s bid to reverse his felony conviction, the state Justice Department said Monday that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute a court bailiff on charges of tampering with Hedgecock’s jury during its deliberations.

After a two-week investigation, Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp’s office decided against any prosecution, citing “strong contradictory evidence” and the lack of “criminal intent.”

While prosecutors argued that the attorney general’s finding reinforces their contention that the jury-tampering allegations are groundless, Hedgecock’s attorneys noted that Monday’s decision does not necessarily mean that jury tampering did not occur--only that there will be no prosecution. The attorney general’s report came as both sides in the case awaited a decision by the California Supreme Court on whether the high court will review Hedgecock’s request that Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. be disqualified from ruling on whether the mayor’s 13-count felony conviction should be reversed because of the jury-tampering allegations. If Hedgecock, who faces a maximum of eight years imprisonment, ultimately loses his motion for a new trial, he would be ousted from office at the time of his sentencing.

Meeting in a special session Friday, the state Supreme Court postponed any future hearings in Hedgecock’s case to give the justices additional time to decide whether there is merit to the mayor’s request.

The high court is not scheduled to meet again until Nov. 13, but could conduct a special hearing to consider Hedgecock’s bid to remove Todd, who presided over both of the mayor’s trials, the first of which ended in a hung jury and the second in Hedgecock’s conviction on conspiracy and perjury counts stemming from allegedly illegal contributions to his 1983 mayoral campaign.

Plea for Replacement

The mayor’s attorneys have argued that Todd should be replaced because he is “both the employer . . . and friend” of Al Burroughs Jr., the bailiff accused of tampering with the jury.

Jurors Kathy Saxton-Calderwood and Stanley J. Bohensky have signed sworn statements alleging that Burroughs, in violation of court rules, frequently talked with jurors about the case and the progress in their 6 1/2-day deliberations. However, sworn affidavits from the 10 other jurors, Burroughs and bailiff Holly Murlin, who also supervised the jury, disputed those charges and have been cited by Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller Jr. as proof that “there was nothing even remotely approaching jury tampering.”