Court Rejects Family’s Plea to Force Filing of Charges in Marine’s Death

A Superior Court commissioner has turned down a request that would have forced the filing of criminal charges against two Cal State Fullerton football players involved in the 1988 death of Marine Sgt. Richard Bottjer.

Commissioner Ronald L. Bauer ruled Friday that the decision to prosecute rests with the district attorney and that granting the Bottjer family’s request would violate constitutional provisions separating the powers of government branches. “Courts are a separate branch of government and we cannot direct an agency in the administrative branch to prosecute a case,” Bauer said.

Bottjer’s family sought to force the district attorney’s office to file assault and homicide charges against two football players who got in a fistfight with Bottjer on April 7, 1988, in the parking lot of Baxter’s restaurant in Fullerton. Bottjer died in the brawl.