Deputy’s Libel Suit Faces Test

A state appeals court on Monday ordered a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy to prove why the court should not throw out his libel suit against Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury.

The California Fifth District Court of Appeal, based in Fresno, issued the one-page order summoning Deputy Gary Spencer to a May 15 hearing.

Spencer sued Bradbury and four staff members last March, accusing the prosecutor of defamation, libel, slander and violating Spencer’s civil rights.

Spencer was the deputy who shot and killed Donald P. Scott during a fruitless drug raid on the Malibu millionaire’s ranch on Oct. 2, 1992. Afterward, Bradbury issued a widely publicized report that exonerated Spencer because Scott was waving a gun around when deputies burst into his house at Trail’s End Ranch.

But the report also said Spencer may have lied to get a search warrant for the 200-acre ranch, and it made other negative comments about Spencer.

Bradbury’s attorney, Glen M. Reiser, said the prosecutor’s report is protected under two laws: the First Amendment right to free speech and California law that allows prosecutors to make such statements.

But Spencer’s attorney, David D. Lawrence, said Monday, “The First Amendment doesn’t protect defamatory speech, and our position is he defamed Gary Spencer.” Lawrence said the California law applies only to statements that a prosecutor makes in court, and not to what Bradbury told the news media.

The arguments are to be heard in Fresno because the appeals court there oversees the courts in Kern County. The attorneys originally agreed to have the suit heard in Kern County, but a judge there sent it to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, who ruled it would best be heard in Ventura County.