SIMI VALLEY : Police Needn’t Talk to Tuffree’s Lawyers

A judge on Wednesday refused to compel Simi Valley police officers to cooperate with attorneys representing the man accused of killing one of their colleagues.

Attorneys for Daniel A. Tuffree had asked Ventura County Municipal Court Judge John E. Dobroth to order police officers who participated in a bloody shootout with their client to talk with the defense.

Tuffree is accused of killing Michael F. Clark on Aug. 4.

The two officers who were with Clark when gunfire erupted at Tuffree’s Simi Valley home have declined to talk with defense attorneys, internal police memos show.

“If I did [issue the order] and they decided to recite poetry, there is nothing I could do about it,” Dobroth said in dismissing the unusual motion.

California law holds that witnesses do not have to talk to anybody they do not want to outside of court.

“Nowhere does it say that an unwilling witness has to submit to an interview,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris said, arguing that rape victims often refuse to talk to defense attorneys.

“It is not unusual that police officers would decline to talk to someone who shot a fellow officer,” Kossoris said.

Defense attorney Richard E. Holly had argued that the case was unusual and called for Dobroth to set a precedent.

“For the first time in Simi Valley history, a police officer was shot” and city officials are unsure how to proceed, Holly argued.