Once-Shy Lawyer Proud of Convicting Hedgecock

S. Charles (Chuck) Wickersham is proud that he’s the prosecutor who convicted Roger Hedgecock.

Wickersham has toiled 20 years on cases big and small for the San Diego County district attorney’s office, but he never had a case with the public interest and impact of the Hedgecock affair.

Once a shy, bookish man who shunned the public eye, Wickersham has opened up a bit in the year since Hedgecock’s conviction. Wickersham is even running for judge, hoping that his reputation as a prosecutor has been boosted as much as his confidence.

“A lot of people build resumes on belonging to this or writing for that or going to this college,” Wickersham said. “Someday, when I retire, I’ll be able to look back on the concrete things I did, and Hedgecock will be one of those. There’s no way you can get around the fact that I, with the help of some other people, successfully prosecuted that case. I got it. That’s mine.”

Chuck Wickersham never would have talked like that a year ago. But he’s a changed man today.

“I think it did change me, in the sense that I accomplished one more thing, one more thing of some very definite substance,” he said. “That was a very substantial achievement. I’m not trying to brag or anything, but any lawyer, I think, would say the same thing.”

Wickersham said the trial was made more difficult by the nature of the defendant and the notoriety of the case.

“It’s more difficult to present a case when you’re in a fish bowl,” he said.

What’s more, Wickersham was following Richard Huffman, the well-respected deputy district attorney who prosecuted Hedgecock’s first case before being appointed to the Superior Court bench. After that trial ended with the jury deadlocked 11-1 for conviction, Wickersham felt as if he had little to gain by taking over the case for the second trial.

“In the eyes of most people, the case was won,” he said. “If I lost, it was going to be, ‘Yeah, he isn’t up to it.’ If I win, it’s, ‘Yeah, right, but everybody knew you were going to win.’ ”

As it turned out, Wickersham said, he didn’t gain as much recognition from the case as he had expected.

“I know in my personal life, I just go about my routine as I always did,” he said. “I can’t remember a person stopping me and saying, ‘Aren’t you the Hedgecock prosecutor?’ And on the phone, it’s always, ‘Well, how do you spell that name?’ ”

For Huffman, the Hedgecock trial he prosecuted holds some painful memories, if only because he regrets not objecting to the presence on the jury of city trash collector Leon Crowder, whose lone vote for acquittal cost Huffman the conviction. But Huffman said the mistake doesn’t haunt him.

“My original instinct was to challenge him, and I made the decision not to, and I was wrong,” he said. “I regret that, but that’s life in the fast lane.”

Huffman said the year was a success for him, even if he failed to convict Hedgecock.

“I finished off that year, after the non-verdict I handled, with the prosecutor of the year award, public lawyer of the year award, the American College of Lawyers took me in (as a member), and the governor made me a judge,” Huffman said. “I’ve often wondered if I had obtained a conviction, if they would have appointed me to the Supreme Court.”