High Court Bars D.A. From Murder Retrial

The California Supreme Court on Wednesday barred San Diego County prosecutors from the retrial of a San Diego insurance executive accused of murder, by declining to review a ruling that Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller had lost his “perspective” in the case.

The high court’s action left standing a decision issued in June by the 4th District Court of Appeal in San Diego, upholding San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Perry Langford’s order that the California attorney general prosecute the retrial of Herman Martin.

Langford said in his order that Miller had “lost his perspective” in the case, and the appellate court upheld that view when it ruled 2 to 1 that Martin could not get a fair trial from Miller’s office.

Martin was charged with arranging the 1981 killing of La Jolla attorney Richard Crake. He was convicted in March, 1982. But Martin won a new trial in November, 1987, when the state Supreme Court found “serious misconduct” by San Diego County prosecutors.

That 1987 decision, in turn, upheld the findings of a special referee, appointed by the high court to investigate the case. Retired appellate Justice Gerald A. Brown concluded in a 1986 report that misconduct by a prosecutor in Miller’s office and perjury by the prosecutor’s key witness resulted in Martin’s wrongful conviction.

Brown’s findings had so angered Miller that he issued press releases and made strong public statements criticizing the report.

Miller said in a 1986 interview that Brown’s analysis of the case had been a “rather naive, gullible approach.” Shortly after the 1987 Supreme Court ruling, Miller called Brown’s report “just bunk.”

Martin’s attorney, Charles M. Sevilla, then charged that Miller was so biased against Martin that Martin could not receive a fair trial if the San Diego district attorney’s office were involved. Sevilla said Miller was trying to “vindicate” the honor of his office by proving Brown wrong and winning Martin’s conviction a second time.

The 4th District court agreed, saying that the “district attorney’s involvement in the Martin case has moved from “purely impartial ‘professional’ concerns to undue ‘personal’ concerns based on a desire to prove the referee’s findings wrong.”

The state Supreme Court’s action Wednesday was made without comment. Miller could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.

Sevilla was out of the country on vacation, but his partner, John Cleary, said that Sevilla “kind of expected” the state Supreme Court’s action because of the nature of the case.

“Given the manner in which it was resolved by the Court of Appeal and given the press of business at the California Supreme Court, there was not a great deal of serious consideration that it would rise to the level of cases the Supreme Court considers,” Cleary said.

Martin remains free on bail, Cleary said.