Chief Won’t Seek Action Against Judge Lester

San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender decided Friday not to follow through with plans to file a formal complaint against Superior Court Judge J. Morgan Lester in connection with Lester’s criticisms of police conduct in the Sagon Penn case.

Kolender, who has called Lester’s comments “inappropriate” and “irresponsible,” made the decision not to write a letter to the state Commission on Judicial Performance after a 20-minute meeting Friday afternoon with City Manager John Lockwood and City Atty. John Witt.

“Our conception, and I think the district attorney agrees with this, is there is no canon of ethics against a judge expressing himself on the particulars of a trial that is over,” Witt said. “It would be fruitless to go to the Judicial Performance Commission.”

Kolender was unavailable for comment after the meeting.

Lester said, “I agree with them dropping it because there is no basis for it whatsoever. And the entire legal community knows that.”

May Sue Hedgecock

In another development, Kolender confirmed Friday that he has asked attorney Daniel Broderick to explore the possibility of suing radio talk show host Roger Hedgecock.

“He’s made, in my judgment, some pretty slanderous comments,” Kolender said. “He has made accusations about me and relationships with the Copley Newspapers and Helen Copley, functions I was at . . . all kinds of things I thought were improper.”

Kolender said he asked Broderick, president of the San Diego County Bar Assn., to review Hedgecock’s comments. But KSDO has refused to provide Broderick with tapes of the Hedgecock show without a subpoena.

“I think it’s kind of ludicrous for them to say I won’t send you a transcript unless you sue us when all we want to do is see what Hedgecock said and see if there is a basis for a suit,” Broderick said.

Jack Merker, KSDO vice president of operations, said he would not comment on Broderick’s request.

Hedgecock said he was surprised that a public official in a high-profile position such as Kolender would waste time trying to sue a talk show host for voicing his opinion.

“It’s far too defensive to be coming from a totally rational human being,” Hedgecock said. “I think it reinforces my long-held belief that he is simply suffering from burnout on the job and ought to quit.”

Hedgecock acknowledged that he has consistently criticized Kolender in recent months.

“I’ve described him as a guy who seems to be more comfortable in a tux at society events than working behind his desk in a police uniform. . . . In the past, I have said--and would be happy to say again--that in my view he is a fair-haired boy of the Copley Press and is protected by them from criticism,” the former mayor said.

“I only have to point to the ticket-fixing scandal, which was covered over by the (San Diego) Union . . . I think any other police chief or any other public official would have long ago been replaced, based on the actions that he has been involved in.”

Hedgecock’s latest round of attacks on Kolender came this week when the chief lambasted Lester for accusing police officers of lying on the witness stand and concealing evidence in the Penn case.

“My own thought was rather than attack the judge who raised the issue, Chief Kolender should be concerned about the overwhelming evidence cited by the judge that members of his department lied under oath and altered evidence in pursuit of a conviction of Sagon Penn,” Hedgecock said.

Lester’s remarks, published Tuesday in The Times, prompted Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller and Kolender to ask the state attorney general to investigate the judge’s allegations of police misconduct. The attorney general has agreed to begin the investigation within a week by interviewing Lester.

In his second trial, Penn was acquitted last week on all major counts in the March 31, 1985, shooting death of Agent Thomas Riggs and the wounding of Agent Donovan Jacobs and civilian observer Sarah Pina-Ruiz. The remaining, minor charges also were dismissed last week.

In his comments, Lester said, “In this case, the zeal to get Mr. Penn at all cost caused major problems, and they came back and haunted the prosecution and the Police Department repeatedly in the trial. It is something absolutely new and was flabbergasting to me. I’ve been in the legal business 21 years and I have never seen a case where this type of thing was going on.”

Kolender reacted angrily to Lester’s comments by issuing a press release that scolded the judge for making his comments in public instead of taking his complaints to the chief in private.

On Friday, Kolender said he would have gone to the district attorney’s office if Lester had taken his complaint to him privately.

“We are not critical of the fact that a judge has concerns regarding testimony,” Kolender said. “I mean, that is his right. We are concerned that he . . . is a representative of the system and that he go through the system, not through your newspaper.

“This thing is over,” Kolender said of the Penn case. “It has caused wounds in the community and Police Department and all of us want to move forward because all of the good things we are doing are overshadowed by this case.”

Since Kolender has already registered his displeasure over Lester’s remarks, no “further registration is necessary,” Witt said. “I think we all agree that the matter has been divisive enough in the community and is best put to bed at this point.”

Lockwood said: “The three of us came to the same conclusions. Generally, the more we talked about it, we decided not go forward with it . . . I think we thought enough was enough, too.”