Prosecutor, Municipal Jurist Vie : Race for Superior Court Stirs Considerable Interest

A judicial contest with a better-than-average chance to acquire a high profile is shaping up in San Diego County.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Charles Wickersham, the prosecutor who last year won the conviction that pushed Roger Hedgecock from the mayor’s office, declared his candidacy Friday for the Superior Court seat being vacated by Judge Earl H. Maas Jr.

Earlier this week, Municipal Judge E. Mac Amos Jr., who has been an assistant U.S. attorney and a criminal defense lawyer, entered the race for the $77,129-a-year post.

Judicial candidates will appear on the June 3 primary ballot. In each race where no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff Nov. 4 for the top two vote-getters.

Municipal Judge Janet I. Kintner, who has run hard-fought campaigns for both municipal and superior court judgeships, said Friday that she too may file for the contest before the deadline Wednesday.

Wickersham, 48, said ideology and experience will be important factors in his campaign against Amos. Wickersham is a career prosecutor and lifelong Republican who lives in University City. He says he is more conservative than Amos and has practiced law longer.

Although Wickersham said he has not joined other prosecutors in actively campaigning against the retention of Chief Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird of the California Supreme Court, he said that he opposes retaining her and Justices Cruz Reynoso and Joseph Grodin on the court.

“I feel they have a pro-defense bias,” he said. “The death penalty gets the most publicity, but I see it manifested in many ways.”

Amos, 42, was appointed to the Municipal Court in August, 1982, by Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. He beat eight other candidates to retain the post the following November. He said he did not know enough about Wickersham’s politics to contrast their views, and he declined to comment on the Supreme Court retention election.

“I have cases pending on appeal in the appellate courts, and I’m not sure it’s proper for a trial judge to take a position under these circumstances,” Amos said.

Amos, who lives in San Diego and is a Democrat, was an assistant U.S. attorney from 1971 to 1974, then spent eight years in a private practice that handled civil litigation and criminal defense cases. His experience is broader than Wickersham’s, he said.

Lawyers contacted Friday expressed surprise at Wickersham’s candidacy, which, unlike Amos’, had not been the subject of courthouse rumors. They expect the race to stir considerable interest, although Wickersham and Amos are known as low-key moderates.

“Neither of them is flamboyant,” said Elisabeth Semel, president of the Criminal Defense Bar Assn. “Neither is outrageous in their behavior.”

Wickersham said he decided only in the last few days to take advantage of the publicity he garnered through his prosecution of Hedgecock by mounting a judicial campaign. “I’m taking advantage of a position that was thrust upon me,” he said. “The fact I prosecuted Hedgecock puts me in a position where I think I might be in a good position to win.”

Wickersham played a secondary role in Hedgecock’s first trial on perjury and conspiracy charges, but he moved into the job of lead prosecutor in the second after Richard Huffman was appointed to the Superior Court bench.

He is scheduled to begin a lengthy preliminary hearing Monday for Hedgecock’s co-defendants: convicted swindler J. David Dominelli, J. David & Co. associate Nancy Hoover and political consultant Tom Shepard. The three are accused of conspiring to illegally funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars into Hedgecock’s 1983 mayoral campaign. Steve Casey, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said Wickersham’s candidacy would have no effect on his prosecutorial assignments.

Amos said he sees the Superior Court opening as “a challenge” offering the opportunity to preside in more complex and varied cases than he sees as a Municipal Court judge.