Judge Davis Loses Dismissal Bid in Assault Case; Way Cleared for Trial

Defense attorneys for Municipal Judge Joseph K. Davis on Friday lost a bid to have an assault charge against their client dismissed on grounds that the judge is the target of selective prosecution by the San Diego city attorney’s office.

In rejecting the defense request, Municipal Judge James Edmunds declared that attorneys Jan Ronis and Patrick Q. Hall had failed to prove their claim that Davis, accused of beating his pregnant girlfriend in November, was singled out for prosecution by vindictive deputy city attorneys.

Edmunds also denied another defense request that the city attorney’s office be barred from prosecuting the case because its deputies allegedly harbor strong personal feelings about Davis and therefore have a conflict of interest.

Case law “says that a conflict exists whenever the circumstances of a case suggest that prosecutors may not exercise their function in an even-handed manner,” said Edmunds, a South Bay municipal judge handling the case because members of the San Diego bench were reluctant to preside in the trial of a colleague.

“This conflict also must be of such gravity as to render it unlikely that the defendant would receive a fair trial unless (dismissal of the city attorney as prosecutor) is granted. I don’t find evidence exists to support that.”

Edmunds’ rulings pave the way for Davis’ trial on a single misdemeanor battery count to begin Monday.

“That’s life,” Ronis said after Friday’s hearing. “It won’t affect my ability to defend Judge Davis . . . . But I still believe that, at a minimum, there is an appearance of impropriety when the city attorney’s office prosecutes a judge who they appear in front of on all types of cases all the time.”

Davis, a former deputy city attorney appointed to the San Diego bench in 1980, is accused of beating his live-in girlfriend, Anna Monica Garcia, during an argument the couple had Nov. 23. At the time of the quarrel, Garcia, 24, made a citizen’s arrest and obtained a court order barring Davis, 41, from visiting her.

But Garcia has subsequently declined to cooperate with prosecutors, recanted her story of the beating and urged that charges against Davis be dropped. Ronis said the couple is on good terms again, though they no longer live together and Garcia’s whereabouts are unknown.

In seeking dismissal of the charges, Ronis and Hall argued that the city attorney’s office had pursued the case against their client because they disagree with his judicial philosophies. They maintained that city prosecutors, believing Davis is an “anti-prosecution judge,” last year adopted a policy of filing challenges aimed at preventing Davis from presiding in certain types of cases.

The defense team also argued that city attorneys recently told Davis that they would insist that all cases in his courtroom be conducted as jury trials--rather than trials decided by the judge--because they did not believe he understood the meaning of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Moreover, Hall and Ronis claimed that Deputy City Atty. Casey Gwinn, who is handling the prosecution, is biased because Davis once reprimanded him for immature courtroom behavior. Testimony from witnesses, including Gwinn himself, confirmed that Davis once told the deputy to stop pouting after unfavorable rulings.

“We believe that the totality of these circumstances definitely create a lack of impartiality on the part of the city attorney’s office,” Hall said in concluding his argument Friday.

Deputy City Atty. Loraine Etherington, however, disagreed and said there had been no proof that prosecutors had handled the Davis case any differently than other similar domestic violence cases.

“The decision to prosecute was based solely on the state of the evidence and nothing further,” Etherington said.

Edmunds apparently came to a similar conclusion after reading briefs, hearing arguments from both sides and a day’s worth of testimony from witnesses.

“I think we all agree that to establish invidious discrimination the defense must prove that (Davis) has been singled out for prosecution . . . and that the prosecution would not have been pursued but for discrimination on the part of the prosecuting authorities,” Edmunds said.

“I find no evidence that, at the time the case arose, the city attorney had a policy of dismissing a case when the victim did not want to press charges.”

Consequently, Davis was treated no differently from other defendants in domestic violence cases, Edmunds concluded.