Penn Judge Threatens to Jail Some Spectators

A Superior Court judge Tuesday threatened to jail any spectators in the murder trial of Sagon Penn if they continued to make body gestures in the courtroom or to make comments within earshot of jurors on the street.

“The court will not tolerate any attempt by any spectator to communicate with any member of the jury,” Judge Ben W. Hamrick told a packed courtroom. “You people who have been attending the trial on a daily basis know the jurors by face. There is absolutely no excuse for this kind of conduct.”

Defense attorney Milton Silverman said that many of the spectators who regularly have waited in line each day to view the 10-week-old trial are black and that any attempts to tamper with the jury are not connected with Penn, who also is black.

“I don’t want the jury to get the idea Mr. Penn is trying to influence the case,” Silverman said. “I would move for the public being excluded” from the courtroom.

Hamrick said that such drastic measures are not necessary but that he will consider closing his courtroom if his concerns are not resolved.

Penn is charged with murdering San Diego Police Agent Thomas Riggs on March 31, 1985, and seriously wounding Agent Donovan Jacobs and Sarah Pina-Ruiz, a civilian observer who was a passenger in Riggs’ car.

At the beginning of Tuesday’s session, three jurors reported two separate Monday incidents in which they felt that spectators had attempted to communicate with them. All three jurors said the events will not affect their ability to be impartial in the case.

One juror said a woman seated in the rear of the courtroom was acting strangely, as if she were repeating a “chant or something” and staring at her in the jurors’ box. Two other jurors said spectators had voiced their opinions about a witness outside the courthouse at the end of Monday’s session.

On Tuesday, Hamrick ordered his bailiffs to keep spectators and the press in their seats for 60 seconds at the start of each break to give jurors a head start when they leave the courtroom.

Hamrick said he does not plan to sequester the jury once it begins deliberations in early May. He said there is no need to restrict the jury to a hotel “unless something dramatic happens.”

The judge also ruled that Jacobs’ personnel file contains nothing of interest for the defense, which is seeking to prove that the officer has a history of problems with using excessive force and racial slurs. Jacobs’ performance evaluations show that he is nothing but an ideal officer, Hamrick said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter continued calling members of the San Diego Police Department on Tuesday to testify on behalf of Jacobs.

Numerous defense witnesses have testified that Jacobs told Penn, “You think you’re bad, nigger. . . . I’m going to beat your black ass” moments before the shootings.

Sgts. Arthur Shannon and Edward Petrick and Officers Judith Woods and Anthony Johnson said that, based on their close association with Jacobs, he is incapable of making such racial remarks.

Petrick said he counseled Jacobs and three other officers in the Police Department’s Northern Division in 1981 to break up their “clique” when they worked in the field. The warning was not well-received, Petrick said, and two of the officers were transferred after those involved failed to control their friendship by continuing to cover one another on police calls.