Judge Denies Tuffree’s Bid for Mistrial

The former teacher accused of killing a Simi Valley policeman lost a bid for a mistrial Tuesday, despite pleas to a Ventura County judge that recent publicity over the slayings of two other police officers could taint the jury.

Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele refused to start over again just as 12 jurors and five alternates have been picked to hear the case against Daniel Allan Tuffree.

But Steele agreed to question the jurors and alternates one by one on Monday, to make sure they can give a fair and impartial verdict on Tuffree’s alleged role in the Aug. 4 slaying of Officer Michael F. Clark.

“I think we can tell these [jurors] they haven’t done anything wrong by reading the newspapers,” Steele said.

“And we’d appreciate their honest answers” about whether news stories of the death of Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputy Peter J. Aguirre Jr. and CHP Officer Don J. Burt might bias their verdict, Steele said.

Deputy public defenders Richard Holly and Howard Asher filed a brief mistrial motion Tuesday attached to a thick sheaf of newspaper clippings on the killings and funerals of Aguirre and Burt.

Holly and Asher filed the motion during the latest in a series of closed hearings that Steele has ordered in the Tuffree case. Behind locked doors, the attorneys argued over evidence that might be presented to the jury, such as more than 180 pages of transcripts from police interviews with Tuffree.

But just as oral arguments began on Tuffree’s mistrial motion Tuesday afternoon, Steele unlocked his courtroom to the public and press.

The motion says that “overwhelming publicity surrounding the recent deaths of [Burt and Aguirre] infringe on defendant’s due process right to a trial by a fair and impartial jury guaranteed by the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution.”

The motion also says that an alternate juror was dismissed July 16 after he “expressed extreme concern over his ability to be a fair and impartial juror due to overwhelming feelings resulting from the shooting of Officer Burt.”

Burt was shot seven times, once in the head, during a July 13 traffic stop in Fullerton.

Asher argued to Steele that jurors also probably saw or heard news reports on the death and funeral of Aguirre, who was fatally shot in a Meiners Oaks domestic disturbance last week and buried on Monday.

“I think it’s certainly important because of this recent event and the possible reaction it could cause with the jurors,” Asher said in oral arguments. “It might make a big difference, and I’d request that the court question these people again.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris said he opposed the mistrial and the defense request that Steele postpone the trial so jurors might have a “cooling-off period” after learning of Aguirre’s and Burt’s deaths.

But Kossoris agreed that Steele should quiz the 17 jurors and alternates about possible bias.

“I think the jurors have demonstrated that they will raise their hands” to say whether news accounts have swayed them, Kossoris said.

Steele refused to declare a mistrial, or to postpone the trial.

But he said he will convene the jurors and alternates in the private jury room Monday, question them, and allow attorneys to ask for them to be dismissed if they have been influenced by news reports of the police slayings.

Any jurors who are rejected will be replaced by fresh candidates from outside the jury room, not by any of the five alternates, Steele said.