Son’s Trial Posed Conflict for Ex-Officer

Cop or no cop, the tears flowed freely.

Howard Davis Sr., a retired Beverly Hills police officer, was hurting worse than ever because his 30-year-old son--his “life,” as he put it--was faced with the possibility of spending the rest of his days in state prison for sexually assaulting four women and one girl.

The elder Davis, who early in his son’s trial in Van Nuys Superior Court played the role of defense investigator as well as defendant’s father, had become pure dad by the end.

“The void will never be filled in my life,” Davis said last week after a jury declared his son was sane when he committed 41 sexual offenses. “Howard’s the baby in this family.”

In sometimes dramatic fashion, the Howard August Davis Jr. trial presented a rare glimpse of the heartbreak, embarrassment and confusion faced by law enforcement authorities whose loved ones break the law.

It also showed how difficult, some would say impossible, it is for anyone so personally involved in a case--regardless of legal experience or position--to do much more than watch powerlessly as the justice system takes its course.

Howard Davis Sr. tried to challenge that conventional wisdom and failed.

At first, the elder Davis was determined to sit at the defense table with his son and lawyer during the trial. Judge John S. Fisher allowed that unusual move during pretrial proceedings, but prior to jury selection ordered Davis to sit in the courtroom’s spectator area.

The judge made another change after the younger Davis was found guilty and the trial entered a second phase to determine his sanity at the time.

For one thing, the testimony by Davis and his stepdaughter was highly emotional, including unsettling accounts of heavy drinking and arguments at home when the defendant was a boy. Then, bailiffs concerned about security one day frisked the elder Davis, who was not carrying a weapon.

Fisher decided Davis should no longer be in the courtroom during testimony. If a defense investigator truly was needed, the court would pay for someone else to do the job, the judge said.

“I see the father as, not the investigator, but as the parent,” Fisher said in court. “He’s a father. He has emotions.”

The whole affair created a tough spot for yet another player in the law game, defense lawyer Peter L. Knecht, a Davis family friend who remembered when the defendant was born. For Knecht, the case required kid gloves.

“A friend of the family can’t help being personally involved,” Knecht said. “You can’t help but have some feelings. No matter how you cut it, it’s a dirty job.”

Both Fisher and Deputy Dist. Atty. Martin Herscovitz, who prosecuted the case, said they saw nothing wrong with granting the Davises some leeway in the spirit of allowing the defendant to have family support in court.

“Generally, I think a family member is entitled to know their loved one is not getting a raw deal,” Herscovitz said.

The tough call was determining when enough was enough.

Fisher, who scheduled sentencing for Dec. 7, said that in the end the best route seemed to be to set firm restrictions on the father’s court access during the trial even though he was a longtime law enforcement officer.

“I can understand why he wants to be in court,” Fisher said. “I just felt it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.”