San Diego
A sick juror forced Superior Court Judge J. Morgan Lester to postpone the retrial of Sagon Penn on Tuesday.
Lester ordered the proceedings delayed for a day after learning that juror Debbie Trujillo, a college student who works in the personnel office at UC San Diego Medical Center, was ill.
Penn was acquitted in June of murder and other charges in the shooting death of Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of Police Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian ride-along Sarah Pina-Ruiz during a confrontation in Encanto. He is being retried on five charges on which the first jury deadlocked, heavily in favor of acquittal.
The judge used the break in the trial Tuesday to visit the scene of the March 31, 1985, shootings with defense attorney Milton Silverman and the two prosecutors in the case, Deputy Dist. Attys. Michael Carpenter and Wayne Mayer. Lester wanted to view the scene briefly before a jury visits the site, Carpenter said. Reporters were not invited along.
Pina-Ruiz, the third witness in the retrial, is expected to resume her testimony today under cross-examination by Silverman.
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