Penn Case Is Over With Dismissal of Remaining Charges

A San Diego County judge on Friday dismissed the remaining charges against Sagon Penn, ending one of the most controversial and divisive cases in San Diego history.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Michaels appeared before San Diego County Superior Court Judge David M. Gill shortly after 2 p.m. to ask that three charges on which the jury in Penn’s retrial had deadlocked a day earlier be dropped.

Neither Penn, 25, nor his attorney, Milton J. Silverman, was in court when Gill put an end to a two-year ordeal that began on a dirt driveway in Encanto with the shooting death of San Diego Police Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian Sarah Pina-Ruiz.

After consulting with Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Carpenter, the lead prosecutor in both of Penn’s trials, Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller followed through on the intention he had stated after the jury returned Thursday and declared it was time to conclude the proceedings against Penn.

‘A Fair Trial’

“Although I disagree with the result of the jury deliberations in this case, all the issues have been fully litigated,” Miller said in a written statement. “Sagon Penn got a fair trial and so did we.”

Echoing his initial reaction to the jury verdicts, Miller said Friday that the criminal justice system had done its job, despite a second jury’s inability to reach conclusions about all the issues in the case.

“A conscientious jury evaluated the evidence and made a decision. That is the way our system is supposed to work, irrespective of whether we like or dislike the result,” Miller said. “Under those circumstances, I think it is time that my office, the court, the defendant and this community put the case behind us and move on.”

A racially diverse jury found Penn innocent Thursday of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of Riggs; of attempted voluntary manslaughter in the wounding of Jacobs, and of attempted murder and attempted voluntary manslaughter in the wounding of Pina-Ruiz.

The jurors deadlocked 7-5 in favor of convicting Penn on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting of Pina-Ruiz. But they strongly favored acquittal on the other unresolved charges, voting 11-1 to clear Penn of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Riggs and 10-2 to find him innocent of assault with a deadly weapon in the wounding of Jacobs.

Carl Lewis, an attorney who assisted Silverman in Penn’s defense, said he was certain that Penn was “relieved” at Miller’s decision.

“They’ve analyzed the results of the last two trials, and they’ve determined the community has spoken,” Lewis said of the prosecution’s decision.

Carpenter, who is vacationing in Michigan, told reporters Thursday that it would be futile to return to court on the remaining charges against Penn.

“The issues that would pertain to the remaining counts certainly have been litigated fully in the first two trials,” Carpenter said. “Twenty-four people have pretty much indicated they’re on the side of Mr. Penn on those counts.”

A third trial, Carpenter said, “wouldn’t make much sense for Mr. Penn, for the district attorney or for anyone else.”

Miller did not call Jacobs, Pina-Ruiz or Riggs’ widow, Colleen, to inform them of his decision not to seek a third trial, said Linda Miller, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office. But based on discussions prosecutors had earlier with all three, the district attorney expected that the decision would be understood, she said.

“We knew before we got the verdicts that none of the three were anxious to go through this again,” Linda Miller said. “We felt pretty confident they understood why we came to this decision and would be mostly supportive of it.”

Mrs. Riggs, Pina-Ruiz and Jacobs could not be reached for comment.

A police spokesman said the department would respect the prosecutor’s judgment.

“That is the district attorney’s decision,” Lt. Louis Scanlon said. “He has rendered a decision, and we will just abide by that decision and move forward and try to put this thing behind us.”

Penn shot and killed Thomas Riggs during a struggle on Brooklyn Avenue in Encanto on March 31, 1985.

Jacobs had stopped the black youth’s pickup truck to question him, but got into a fight with Penn when he refused a request from the officer to remove his driver’s license from his wallet.

Though Jacobs insisted that Penn, a martial arts expert, was the instigator of the confrontation, eyewitnesses testified that Jacobs struck first and escalated the conflict by beating Penn and showering him with abusive racial epithets.

According to witnesses, Penn grabbed Jacobs’ gun as the officer was trying to subdue him. He shot Jacobs once in the neck, then fired three times at Riggs, who was helping Jacobs control Penn and a crowd of onlookers. Penn then turned to Riggs’ patrol car, where Pina-Ruiz was watching in terror from the front seat, and emptied the service revolver at her through the closed driver’s window. All the shots were fired within six seconds.

After first fleeing the scene in Jacobs’ patrol car, Penn turned himself in to police and gave a series of statements in which he claimed he was acting in self-defense. That contention became the theme of Silverman’s ultimately successful defense.