Request to Exclude Local Jurors Denied

A judge refused Wednesday to exclude Simi Valley and Moorpark residents from a jury that will hear the death penalty trial of Daniel Allen Tuffree.

Tuffree’s attorneys had asked that residents from the city be kept off the jury because the results of an informal survey showed a potential bias. Tuffree is accused of killing Simi Valley Police Officer Michael Clark last summer. Clark lived in Moorpark.

Defense attorney Howard Asher argued that publicity generated after the Aug. 4 shooting probably tainted prospective jurors in Simi Valley and Moorpark.

But prosecutors argued that the motion was nothing more than an attempt to ban politically conservative jurors who may be more inclined to vote for the death penalty than other jurors.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris successfully argued that a similar motion was denied during the Mark Scott Thornton murder trial last year. The Thornton case was a high-profile case that generated lots of media attention and resulted in a death sentence.

Jury selection in the Tuffree trial is scheduled to begin next week. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty because Clark was shot and killed in the line of duty.

Tuffree and his attorneys claim he fired his gun in self defense and that the Simi Valley Police Department is partly to blame because officers used poor judgment the day of the shooting.