Both Sides Claim Victory : State Supreme Court Will Review Hedgecock Case

The state Supreme Court, granting appeals from both the prosecution and defense, agreed on Friday to review the perjury and conspiracy conviction of former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock.

In a one-page order signed by six justices, the court agreed to hear oral argument on two major issues raised by Hedgecock’s attorney and the state attorney general--among them, whether the trial court judge abused his discretion in denying Hedgecock an evidentiary hearing on his allegations of jury tampering.

No date was set for argument before the high court, but it was considered unlikely that the appeals will be heard before late this fall.

Celebration on Both Sides

Both sides in the complex, seemingly endless case said they found cause for celebration in Friday’s move by the court.

Hedgecock’s attorney, Charles Sevilla, said the justices’ action leaves open the possibility that the former mayor might obtain an outright reversal of his 1985 conviction on 13 felony counts.

“We’re very pleased with the Supreme Court’s action,” Sevilla said Friday. “We’re particularly gratified to see that the heavy burden of death-penalty cases on the court has not prevented it from granting hearings on other important legal questions.”

State Deputy Atty. Gen. Howard M. Wayne also welcomed the decision to review the issue. He said he was particularly heartened to see the court’s interest in the propriety of convening an evidentiary hearing on Hedgecock’s accusations of jury tampering.

“We expect to prevail on this question,” Wayne said. “We believe we’re on strong legal ground here.”

Hedgecock, who once referred to his protracted legal battle as San Diego’s “long-running political soap opera,” could not be reached for comment Friday. However, when he was informed of the court’s action during his morning talk show on KSDO radio, the ex-mayor reportedly shared the news with listeners and called it “a good way to start the weekend.”

Latest Twist in Legal Saga

Friday’s turn of events marked the latest twist in the continuing legal saga of Hedgecock, who now works as a land-use consultant in addition to his new career as talk-show personality.

Hedgecock resigned from office shortly after he was convicted in October, 1985, of conspiring with former J. David & Co. principals J. David (Jerry) Dominelli and Nancy Hoover to funnel illegal donations to his 1983 mayoral race through a political consulting firm owned by his close friend Tom Shepard.

The perjury counts on which Hedgecock was convicted charged that he purposely falsified financial disclosure statements to conceal the aid he received from Hoover and Dominelli. The conviction came in Hedgecock’s second trial; jurors deadlocked 11 to 1 for conviction in the former mayor’s first trial.

After the conviction, two jurors alleged that a court bailiff influenced them by improperly discussing the case and its progress during their deliberations, commenting on the expense of housing sequestered jurors in a hotel and stating incorrectly that there could be no hung jury in the second trial.

The jurors, who submitted sworn affidavits but were contradicted by 10 other jury members, also claimed that bailiff Al Burroughs Jr. provided them with liquor at the close of their daily deliberations. Burroughs denied the charges.

Citing jury tampering, Hedgecock asked for a new trial, but the request was rejected by then-Superior Court Judge William L. Todd Jr.

In April, the 4th District Court of Appeal issued a 139-page ruling rejecting a series of claims made in an appeal by Hedgecock. But the appellate court did rule that Todd erred in not allowing Hedgecock a full evidentiary hearing on the jury-tampering charges--a hearing that both sides agree represents Hedgecock’s best chance of overturning his conviction and avoiding, at least temporarily, a year in local jail.

The appellate court noted that, if the hearing ultimately prompted a judge to deny Hedgecock a new trial, his conviction would stand.

In June, both sides in the case appealed the 4th District’s ruling to the state Supreme Court--for very different reasons. The state attorney general’s office called the lower court’s decision ordering a rehearing “fatally flawed” and said it threatened to put “jurors . . . on trial.”

“With the constant possibility of making public what was intended to be the private deliberations of the jury, there is a real rise of the destruction of all frankness, freedom of discussion and debate within the jury itself,” Deputy Atty. Gen. Robert Foster wrote in his brief to the high court.

Sevilla, meanwhile, raised a laundry list of challenges and contended that there already was sufficient evidence of jury tampering to require outright reversal of the conviction: “A prosecution fox was sequestered in the jury house,” he said in papers filed with the court.

Briefs Requested

In Friday’s order granting review, the justices asked attorneys to submit briefs on the issue of jury tampering--and the related question of whether jurors could be compelled to testify--and Judge Todd’s ruling on the legal significance of Hedgecock’s campaign disclosure statements.

The last point is one raised in Sevilla’s appeal. The attorney argued that Todd improperly decided that the former mayor’s allegedly false statements or omissions on the campaign reports were “material,” or significant enough to support perjury charges. That issue, Sevilla maintains, should have been left to the jury.

“The issue is, does a defendant have the constitutional right to have all of the elements of the offense decided by the jury?” Sevilla said Friday. “That is a doctrine that has been emerging recently in state and federal law. But in tension with that is the declining doctrine that says a judge can take certain elements of the case away from the jury.

“The question is which doctrine the California Supreme Court will apply in our case?”

Jenifer Warren reported from San Diego and Philip Hager was in San Francisco.