San Diego

A state appellate court Tuesday denied a request by the San Diego County district attorney’s office that it reconsider a decision voiding an assault charge against Sagon Penn, who is being retried in the slaying of a police officer and the wounding of another officer and a civilian ride-along.

Prosecutors are expected to appeal the 4th District Court of Appeal ruling to the California Supreme Court, which could delay Penn’s retrial for months.

The assault with a deadly weapon charge is based on Penn’s running over Police Agent Donovan Jacobs with a patrol car as Penn fled the scene of a deadly March, 1985, encounter in an Encanto driveway. The episode left Police Agent Thomas Riggs dead and Jacobs and Sarah Pina-Ruiz wounded.

Penn claims the shooting was in self-defense because Jacobs was taunting him with racial epithets and both officers were beating him with their batons. Prosecutors say the police did not use excessive force and blame Penn for sparking the scuffle that led to the shooting.

Last week, the appellate court ruled that the assault charge against Penn was invalid because it had been part of an attempted murder charge that the 25-year-old Southeast San Diego man was acquitted of in June.

Penn also was found innocent in the first trial of murdering Riggs. He is being retried on charges on which the jury deadlocked, heavily in favor of acquittal: voluntary manslaughter in Riggs’ death, attempted murder in the shooting of Pina-Ruiz, and attempted voluntary manslaughter in the wounding of Jacobs.