Prosecutor Accused of Impeding Defense : Deputy District Attorney Warned Police Against Cooperating, Defense Lawyer Says

A county prosecutor has sought to intimidate police supervisors to keep them from providing information about the mental state and past performance of a San Diego police officer who has shot three civilians in the last five years, a defense attorney charged Monday in court.

In a written motion, Assistant Public Defender Deborah Carson asked that a Superior Court judge penalize the district attorney’s office for the alleged misconduct by dropping assault charges against George Balboa, a San Diego man shot by Officer Stephen Williamson in an altercation March 23.

Carson said in a sworn statement that a police lieutenant told her Friday that Deputy Dist. Atty. Hugh McManus warned him it would not be in “his personal best interest” to provide information about Williamson to Balboa’s defense team.

The alleged comment was “tantamount to a threat,” she said. The officer, Lt. Lee Staley, agreed nonetheless to talk to her about the case, Carson said. But other police officials have refused to answer her questions about Williamson, and Carson alleged in the court filing that they, too, had been intimidated by McManus.

A spokesman for the district attorney denied the allegations of misconduct. Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman will conduct a hearing on the charges Aug. 27.

Staley could not be reached for comment, but Carson said he was prepared to testify about the alleged intimidation at the hearing next week.

Based largely on Williamson’s version of the March altercation, Balboa was charged with assaulting the officer with a deadly weapon. Williamson has testified that he fired three shots at Balboa after the Logan Heights man came at him with a chrome bar broken from the light fixture on the officer’s patrol car. Balboa had a high level of PCP in his blood at the time of the shooting, according to evidence at his preliminary hearing.

Other witnesses, however, testified that Balboa did not approach Williamson in a threatening manner and did not have a chrome bar or anything else in his hand when he was shot. Williamson had stopped his car to fix the light bar when the incident occurred.

Balboa has been in County Jail since the incident, unable to post $25,000 bond. Williamson is on leave from the police force and has received psychiatric treatment.

In her court filings, Carson argued Monday that McManus’ conduct violated the American Bar Assn.’s standards of professional conduct for prosecutors. The ABA code says: “It is improper for a prosecutor, defense counsel, or anyone acting for either to suggest to a witness that he not submit to an interview by opposing counsel.”

The code, which is the basis for bar disciplinary procedures, states that attorneys should tell potential witnesses “it is in the interest of justice” to make themselves available before trial to both sides in a criminal proceeding.

Carson said she planned to bring McManus’ alleged misconduct to the attention of the State Bar of California.

“The prosecutor’s discouragement of witnesses talking to the defense has seriously hampered the defense investigation and the preparation of a defense,” she said in her motion. “This situation threatens to substantially impair the search for truth and the fact-finding process.”

The motion asks that, if Huffman declines to dismiss the charge against Balboa, he instead disqualify the district attorney’s office from handling the prosecution or find the district attorney in contempt of court.

Steve Casey, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said the allegations by Carson were “wholly and entirely without merit.”

He added: “Mr. McManus, I’m confident, engaged in nothing short of highly professional conduct.”

McManus could not be reached for comment late Monday afternoon. During a court hearing last week, however, he said Carson was wrongly attempting to divert the court’s attention from Balboa by focusing on Williamson.

“I thought we were prosecuting Mr. Balboa, but it appears we’re prosecuting Officer Williamson--or trying to, by organizing this fishing expedition, to try the Police Department,” McManus said, arguing against Carson’s efforts to obtain police reports concerning Williamson.

The Times reported in April that internal police reports said Williamson had suffered severe emotional distress and problems handling police work since July, 1981, when he accidentally shot and killed an innocent bystander during a foot chase of two robbers.

A 1983 police report said Williamson posed “a potential hazard to both the community and his fellow officers due to his erratic behavior.” In early 1984, a sergeant took away Williamson’s gun because of concerns about his high level of stress, according to another police memo.

Williamson took a two-month leave beginning in August, 1985, complaining of a job-related injury to his “psyche.” In November, a month after he returned to work, he shot a 19-year-old man in the back of the leg while the man fled through the Gaslamp Quarter with a gun. After a police investigation, the shooting was ruled justified. The Balboa shooting occurred in March.

The allegations of prosecutorial misconduct come on the heels of similar allegations against the district attorney’s office in the prosecution of Sagon Penn, the 24-year-old Southeast San Diego man accused of killing a police officer and wounding another and a civilian ride along in March, 1985.

In that case, Penn’s defense attorney is asking for the dismissal of outstanding charges because of alleged delays by prosecutors in coming forward with a document critical of the surviving officer and alleged harassment of a trial juror. The district attorney’s office has denied that it acted improperly.