Hedgecock Asks Court to Ignore ‘Forked Tongues,’ Overturn Case

Saying that prosecutors have relied upon “snarling accusations” and “forked-tongue advocacy” rather than facts in attempting to block former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s bid for a new trial, Hedgecock’s attorneys on Tuesday asked an appeal court to overturn his 13-count felony conviction.

In a 185-page brief filed two years to the week after Hedgecock’s conviction, defense attorney Charles Sevilla told the 4th District Court of Appeal that the conviction should be reversed for reasons ranging from insufficient evidence and jury-tampering charges to alleged legal errors by a Superior Court judge and prosecutors.

Tuesday’s filing concludes the preliminary legal jousting between Hedgecock’s attorneys and prosecutors, setting the stage for a tentatively scheduled December hearing before a three-judge appeal court panel. Assuming that the oral arguments are not delayed, a ruling in the case is expected early next year.

Though Tuesday’s brief went over familiar legal ground, the document represented Sevilla’s point-by-point response to a 294-page brief filed last summer by the state attorney general’s office in which prosecutors urged the appeal court to uphold Hedgecock’s conviction on felony conspiracy and perjury charges.

Hedgecock, who was sentenced to one year in local custody and fined $1,000 for receiving illegal contributions to his 1983 campaign from former J. David & Co. principals J. David (Jerry) Dominelli and Nancy Hoover, is free pending the outcome of his appeal. If the 4th District judges rule against Hedgecock, the former mayor, now a radio talk show host, likely will appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Last summer, supervising Deputy Atty. Gen. Robert Foster characterized the arguments cited earlier by the defense as justification for a new trial as a combination of misstatements of fact, legal misinterpretations and wishful--though legally invalid--attempts to retry the case’s basic evidence. Many of the defense’s objections, Foster wrote, should not even be considered by the appeal court because they were not raised in a “timely fashion” during the trial, while the remainder are “without merit.”

In his reply brief, Sevilla turned many of those same arguments back on the attorney general’s office, accusing prosecutors of distorting the factual record and charging that the prosecution case hinges on “the irrationally strained use of inference.”

“This is one of the few conspiracy cases without anyone testifying that there was ever anything approaching a conspiracy much less that they were a member of it,” Sevilla wrote in the brief. “Without direct evidence, the prosecution was reduced to arguing a hypothetical circumstantial evidence case based on wholly innocent activity or negligent acts.”

One of the focal points in Sevilla’s brief deals with alleged misconduct by court bailiff Al Burroughs Jr.

Shortly after Hedgecock’s conviction, two jurors charged that Burroughs improperly discussed the case and the progress of their deliberations with the jurors while they were sequestered. In sworn affidavits, the two jurors also alleged that Burroughs helped jurors define the crucial legal term of “reasonable doubt,” pressured the jury to reach a verdict expeditiously and provided jurors with liquor. The other 10 jurors, however, denied that the bailiff had behaved improperly.

In denying Hedgecock a new trial in December, 1985, then-Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr. rejected the defense’s contention that Burroughs’ alleged misconduct tainted the jury’s verdict. That ruling, Foster argued last summer, is not even subject to review, much less possible reversal, by the appeal court.

“(Prosecutors’) hopes for non-review of the trial court’s decision is wishful thinking,” Sevilla responded. “The appellate court is no wallflower.”

Burroughs’ alleged comments to the jury, Sevilla added, “were intended to pressure the jurors to hurry their verdict,” and thereby denied Hedgecock a fair trial.

Sevilla dismissed most of the attorney general’s other arguments with phrases such as “rhapsodic speculation,” “conveniently erroneous or mistakenly myopic,” and “adversarial hindsight reconstruction based upon speculation.”

“The conspiracy and perjury convictions cannot stand,” Sevilla concluded. “A rational trier of fact could not find (Hedgecock) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”