Former Mayor Seeks New Trial : Alcohol Impaired Hedgecock Jury, Motion Says

Former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s felony conviction should be overturned, his attorneys argued Thursday, because some jurors’ “deliberative ability” was impaired by their “excessive drinking” of alcoholic beverages during deliberations.

In a motion filed in Superior Court, attorney Charles Sevilla argued that the drinking that occurred during the jury’s sequestration at a Mission Valley hotel last fall deprived Hedgecock of a fair trial. Therefore, Hedgecock’s 13-count felony conviction should be set aside and a new trial ordered, Sevilla contended.

A color photograph purportedly showing the jurors and court bailiffs drinking together only hours before the jury began its final deliberations accompanied the 23-page defense motion. In the photo, the jurors and two bailiffs are sitting together on a sofa and the floor, with the youngest juror, 20-year-old Bryce Bulman, holding what Sevilla identified as a beer can. The legal drinking age in California is 21.

“As a result of the drinking, several jurors became intoxicated such that it affected their deliberative ability,” the defense motion said. In the motion, Sevilla cited several legal precedents in which jury verdicts were overturned because jurors had consumed alcoholic beverages during deliberations.

Thursday’s motion is not the defense’s actual appeal of Hedgecock’s conviction, but rather a preliminary petition aimed at obtaining a new trial, Sevilla explained. He said he expects a Superior Court judge to request the district attorney’s office to respond to the defense motion before the judge rules on it.

Steve Casey, a spokesman for Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller, dismissed Sevilla’s brief as “just a repetition of the same old trash” raised in earlier defense motions seeking to overturn the guilty verdict. Referring to the festive mood depicted in the photo of the jurors, Casey added, “I’ve never seen it written that jurors had to go around wearing sackcloth . . . with long faces.”

If Thursday’s motion is ultimately denied, Sevilla has until November to file his appeal of Hedgecock’s conviction with the 4th District Court of Appeal.

Last Oct. 9, a Superior Court jury convicted Hedgecock on 13 felony conspiracy and perjury charges stemming from illegal contributions to his 1983 mayoral campaign. The guilty verdicts came in Hedgecock’s second trial on the charges, after his first case ended in a mistrial with the jury deadlocked, 11-1, in favor of conviction.

Prosecutors charged that tens of thousands of dollars in improper donations from J. David (Jerry) Dominelli and Nancy Hoover, former principals in the now-defunct La Jolla investment firm of J. David & Co., were funneled to Hedgecock’s campaign via a political consulting firm owned by his close friend, Tom Shepard. Dominelli, Hoover and Shepard since have pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to use Shepard’s firm as a conduit for the illegal campaign donations.

In addition, prosecutors charged that Hedgecock did not properly report personal financial aid that he received from Hoover and Dominelli on various financial disclosure reports required of public officials.

One week after Hedgecock’s conviction, two jurors alleged that court bailiff Al Burroughs Jr. improperly discussed the case and the progress of the deliberations with the jurors while they were sequestered. In sworn affidavits, the two jurors also alleged that Burroughs had helped some jurors to define the crucial legal term of “reasonable doubt.”

In December, however, Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. ruled that the jury-tampering allegations did not affect Hedgecock’s verdict. Shortly before Todd sentenced Hedgecock to one year in local custody and fined him $1,000, Hedgecock resigned as mayor. He is free pending the outcome of his appeal.

While Thursday’s motion did not directly address the jury-tampering allegations, it did renew questions about Burroughs’ behavior during deliberations. In particular, the motion faulted the bailiff for providing jurors with alcoholic beverages and joining in the drinking.

“It is one thing for a juror to surreptitiously bring in liquor during the sequestration process, but far more terrible when done by the bailiff who is sworn to keep the jurors in a safe place and in a condition to permit sober reflection and deliberation,” Sevilla wrote in the brief.

Although the drinking occurred on several occasions throughout the jury’s deliberations, the defense motion focuses on what Sevilla termed the “excessive drinking” that took place in the early morning hours of Oct. 9, only hours before the jurors cast their final votes on the verdicts.

According to the defense motion, some jurors drank beer, wine, Kahlua or vodka until nearly 3 a.m. As a result of that drinking, the brief charges, some jurors “became intoxicated such that they were unable to perform their duty a few hours later when the final morning of deliberations resumed at about 7:30 a.m.”

One juror, the brief says, “spent the morning on a sofa with a pillow on her head instead of being at the deliberation table with the other jurors. She is described (by other jurors) as being quite ill and having to leave the room on occasion to retch.” The brief also alleges that another juror “is described as also feeling the effects of the previous evening’s libations with the bailiff.”

The drinking, Sevilla argued, “raises the question of the capacity of several jurors” during the final day’s deliberations. Without naming the individual, Sevilla provided this account of one juror’s condition during the final hours of deliberations:

“He/she recalled feeling so bad that his/her roommate prepared a very strong (double-strength) Alka-Seltzer to help alleviate his/her condition,” Sevilla stated in a sworn affidavit attached to his motion. “Because of a lack of sleep during the evening and because of heavy drinking during the Tuesday/Wednesday morning party, this juror has stated to me that the drinking/lack of sleep did influence his/her judgment in jury deliberations on Wednesday morning, Oct. 9, 1985. Because of embarrassment, the juror does not want to execute an affidavit to this effect.”

Sevilla noted that appellate courts have ruled that, while it is not necessary to show that jurors were intoxicated during deliberations to overturn a verdict, it must be shown that the drinking had an impact on jurors’ “capacity to competently perform their duties.” In an attempt to bolster the defense’s claim that the drinking impaired the deliberations, Sevilla’s brief included a statement from forensic scientist Richard Whalley on how drinking affects one’s judgment.

“If an individual is in the ‘hangover’ stage . . . that individual may be very impatient in a deliberation process,” Whalley wrote.