Gates Wins Legal Bid; Foe’s Comments to Be Off Election Materials

Sheriff Brad Gates won a last-minute legal bid Friday to keep comments critical of the sheriff out of a challenger’s election material for the June 3 primary.

The 4th District Court of Appeal in Santa Ana rejected a request by attorneys for Linda Lea Calligan, a sergeant in the Sheriff’s Department who is running against Gates, to allow her material to be printed as is.

Registrar Al Olson said he told printers Friday afternoon to start printing the election pamphlets with the offending portions deleted. The printing originally was scheduled to start Thursday afternoon but was delayed because of the legal wrangling.

Presses Running

The presses “certainly will be running tonight,” Olson said, and at the rate of 75,000 booklets an hour, “by this time tomorrow (Saturday), it will all be printed.”

The offending statements by Calligan involved Gates’ ownership of property that later became a bar and an alleged cover-up of a drunk-driving charge against a sheriff’s deputy.

The appeals court Friday refused to stay an April 2 ruling by Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ryan, who had found that Calligan’s statements were “false and misleading.” The judge ordered the statements removed from a 200-word statement prepared by Calligan to be mailed to county voters by the registrar of voters.

On April 3, the appeals court stayed Ryan’s order, but the state Supreme Court removed the stay Thursday evening. On Friday the Supreme Court refused to take up the case again and the appeals court refused to reinstate the stay. It also refused to move up its scheduled hearing on the issue from June 18, 15 days after the primary.

Considering Further Action

Gates said he was “very pleased that the truth has prevailed.” Calligan pronounced it “a shameful day when the government decides in favor of one of its own officials, rather than letting the voters decide.”

Calligan said she was “considering further legal action,” and one of her attorneys, William Yacobozzi Jr., said he was considering taking the matter to federal court and charging that Calligan’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech had been violated.

Yacobozzi said he was especially disappointed the court denied his request to hold a hearing next week.

“If Gates wins the primary and Calligan wins (a court decision) on June 18, there would be a strong possibility Calligan would move to void the election,” Yacobozzi said.

On Thursday, the appeals court expressed some doubt about the constitutionality of the 1983 law letting a candidate ask a judge to remove an opponent’s election statement if it is “false and misleading.”

“Any system of prior restraints, especially in a political electioneering context, must be viewed with great disfavor, even though the speech involved is alleged to be scurrilous,” the court said.

The assemblyman who wrote the 1983 law and lawyers on both sides said they believe the current case is the first challenge to the law.