ORANGE COUNTY IN BANKRUPTCY : Judge Cites ‘Substantial Progress’ in Legal Funding

SANTA ANA — A Superior Court judge who last week threatened to hold the Board of Supervisors in contempt for failing to pay defense costs in a death penalty case said Friday he’s optimistic that funds are now becoming available.

“The county has made substantial progress,” Judge David O. Carter said Friday in a pretrial hearing involving the case of Edward Patrick Morgan Jr., who is accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a young Huntington Beach woman.

“I’m certainly more optimistic this week than I was when I heard the information that came into court last week on the Morgan matter,” he said.

During a pretrial hearing last week, Morgan’s lawyer and other court-appointed attorneys complained that investigators and expert witnesses had not been paid for upcoming trials, jeopardizing their ability to properly defend their indigent clients. Carter reacted sharply, saying the courts had been patient in wake of the Dec. 6 bankruptcy, but the judiciary’s patience was wearing thin.

The judge heard better news Friday from several defense attorneys.

“The problems we previously discussed, relating to fees and payment for investigators, I believe are under control,” said Julian Bailey, who is representing Morgan in the death penalty case, which has been rescheduled for trial in October. “Any problems in the future will certainly be brought to the court’s attention.”

Defense attorneys Robert Viefhaus and William Watson told Carter Friday that the county has moved to pay part of their costs for more than 100 cases originating in Municipal Court in Fullerton and Westminster.

Attorney David Haigh, however, said he’s been waiting since October for funds to hire crucial expert witnesses for an upcoming trial involving a Costa Mesa man charged with killing his infant daughter.

Carter said he would work to get Haigh’s funding request into the “pipeline,” and asked all the attorneys to report back to him in the near future for updates on the funding.

Court administrators last week said the county had begun doling out checks totaling nearly $700,000 to pay pending defense bills.

Meanwhile, in another bankruptcy-related courtroom hearing Friday, Orange County public defenders asked a judge to relieve them of the responsibility of representing accused mass murderer Charles Ng and to move the notorious Northern California case out of the cash-strapped county.

Since the bankruptcy, defenders say they have been unable to get any funds to proceed with the case, which they were assigned in October after it was transferred from Calaveras County because of extensive pretrial publicity there.

Ng, 33, a former U.S. Marine, is charged with torturing and killing 12 people--including Robin Scott Stapley, a 25-year-old Orange County resident--in 1984 and 1985 at a remote mountain house in Calaveras County, about 150 miles east of San Francisco.

Defenders said Friday they don’t have money to rent space to house more than 100,000 pages of documents, and evidence that includes some 90 pounds of bones, much less begin preparing for a trial of “mammoth proportions” that could last up to nine months and include 500 witnesses.

Chief Deputy Public Defender Carl C. Holmes said the office doesn’t even have adequate space to house two new divisions handling cases previously assigned private defense attorneys. Some defenders, he said, are forced to work out of their cars.

“We are not capable of ethically moving forward in Mr. Ng’s representation,” he said.

While the county would expect reimbursement from Calaveras County and the state for costs of the case, defenders said the county has not released funds to even get them started.

Deputy Public Defenders William Kelley and Allyn Jaffrey suggested San Francisco would be a better place for the case, which they said could save taxpayers across the state.

Calaveras County Dist. Atty. John Martin and Los Angeles Deputy State Atty. Sharlene Honnaka, who are prosecuting Ng, said they opposed moving the case, which has been dragging through the courts for many years.

Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald, who sarcastically thanked former county Treasurer-Tax Collector Robert L. Citron for the “embarrassment” of contemplating the move, said he would take a few weeks to consult others and see if any funds are available before making a decision.