San Diego
The state Supreme Court has given itself another month to decide whether to consider dismissing the remaining charges against Sagon Penn, the Southeast San Diego man accused of killing a police officer and wounding an officer and a civilian.
The high court this week extended until Dec. 4 its deadline for ruling on defense attorney Milton Silverman’s request that it review lower-court decisions refusing to toss out the charges against Penn.
Silverman contends that the case should be dropped because prosecutors concealed important evidence and broke a promise not to investigate a juror’s conduct during Penn’s first trial, which ended with his acquittal on the most serious charges stemming from a March 31, 1985, confrontation with police. Prosecutors insist that their conduct was proper.
The Supreme Court intervened three days before the scheduled start of Penn’s retrial in September. Penn faces charges of voluntary manslaughter in the death of Police Agent Thomas Riggs, attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault in the wounding of Police Agent Donovan Jacobs, and attempted murder in the shooting of civilian ride-along Sarah Pina-Ruiz.
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