State Atty. Gen. Backs Up D.A. on Bray Decision : Police Slayings: Lack of criminal charges against deputy who shot and killed Vista man as he backed out of driveway was justified, state concludes. Despite setback, family of slain man vows to pursue case.

Closing a chapter in the controversial shooting death of Jeffrey Bray, the state attorney general’s office concluded Thursday that the district attorney’s office was within its legal right not to bring criminal charges against the reserve sheriff’s deputy who fired the fatal shot.

The state’s review was taken up two months ago at the behest of the San Diego County Grand Jury, some of whose members were unhappy that the district attorney’s office did not present evidence in the case to jurors.

In a rare request, Grand Jury Foreman Reno J. Testolin asked the attorney general’s office to review “the reasonableness” of the district attorney’s investigation and findings.

On Thursday, the attorney general’s office ruled that the district attorney’s “decision not to pursue prosecution of the deputies was not an abuse of discretion. To the contrary, his decision that both deputies were legally justified when they used deadly force appears to have been an ethical one supported by the evidence.”

State investigators acknowledged that they did not conduct their own independent review of the facts in the Bray case, but examined the entire district attorney’s investigation instead.

“We did what we were asked to do, but we didn’t reinvestigate the case,” said Harley D. Mayfield, senior assistant attorney general.

“The D.A. is the public prosecutor,” Mayfield said. “He is responsible for looking at the facts as developed and making a determination as to whether a criminal prosecution is appropriate--whether he has a good criminal case. We took a look to determine whether he abused his discretion. He did not.”

Testolin said he was satisfied with the attorney general’s findings and considers the matter closed.

“I think the attorney general has answered the questions we asked for,” he said. “As we indicated before, he had not presented evidence to us. We felt that because of the intense interest in the case, a second opinion was appropriate.”

Bray’s father, Joe, said this is another in a long series of disappointments.

“I don’t care what the state of California’s attorney general says. They did an injustice to my boy,” Bray said. “What we needed was a reinvestigation of this thing. That’s what I thought we were getting. If I have any other recourse--the U.S. attorney general’s office, the President of the United States, I’ll use that recourse. And I’ll start tomorrow.”

Of the many fatal law enforcement shootings of suspects that have occurred in San Diego County in recent years, the killing of 21-year-old Bray by former Reserve Sheriff’s Deputy John S. Wickham is among the most controversial because of its odd circumstances.

Wickham shot Bray in the back of the head a year ago after following him into the parking lot of a Vista apartment complex.

Wickham and his partner, William Curtis Fewell Jr., said they had tailed Bray’s truck because they believed it had been stolen. They followed him into the apartment complex and opened fire when the truck rolled into reverse and crashed into their patrol car. They later learned that the truck had not been stolen, and it seems likely that Bray never knew he was being followed.

Although Dist. Atty. Edwin L. Miller ruled the shooting legally justified in February, he called it “regrettable and avoidable” and said that “a thread of unprofessionalism was entwined throughout the entire incident.”

Wickham’s personnel file showed “a history of demonstrated exuberance, aggressiveness and overzealous behavior,” Miller said at the time. Sheriff Jim Roache fired Wickham in April.

In the meantime, the county agreed to a $1.95-million settlement for Bray’s widow, Lena, and her baby daughter, to be paid out over their lifetimes. Bray’s parents, Joe and Brenda, have filed a separate civil rights lawsuit against the county.

Lena Bray’s attorney, Gerald Davee, said he was under the impression that the attorney general’s office would be conducting a separate investigation.

“I thought it was going to be an independent review, not just that they looked at the facts and said the district attorney didn’t ‘abuse his discretion,’ whatever that means,” he said. “This case should have been left for a jury to decide whether the deputies followed the sheriff’s rules and regulations of deadly force.”

Whether someone should have been prosecuted for the shooting is still open to debate, Davee said, and, on rare occasions, the state has filed criminal charges when a local district attorney’s office has decided against prosecution.

Davee said Lena Bray “is still interested that there be a prosecution of those involved because she cannot understand how Jeff could have been shot under the circumstances.”

The state’s review included witness statements, crime lab reports, ballistic reports, Bray’s autopsy and toxicology reports, sheriff’s radio transmissions, photos and videos of the shooting scene, the personnel files of Wickham and Fewell and other documents.

“While we sympathize with the loss the Bray family has suffered,” Mayfield said, “we do not find the district attorney abused his statutorily mandated discretion. Based on these findings, no further action will be taken by this office.”