Judge Issues Gag Order in Dally Murder Case

A Ventura County judge issued a gag order Friday in the case of accused killer Diana Haun, forbidding Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury and Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman from releasing facts and evidence to the news media.

Municipal Court Judge John R. Smiley’s gag order--coauthored by prosecutors and defense attorneys--also requires Bradbury and Clayman to ensure that their staffs and police investigators keep quiet about evidence in the Haun case.

The 35-year-old Haun, charged with first-degree murder, has been jailed in the slaying of Ventura homemaker Sherri Dally, 35.

Dally’s skeletal remains were found June 1 in a ravine north of Ventura, nearly a month after she disappeared from a Target store parking lot in the city. She had been bludgeoned to death and stabbed repeatedly.

Haun’s attorneys filed a motion Wednesday seeking the gag order, arguing that pretrial publicity fed by comments from law enforcement officials would hurt her chances for a fair trial.

But prosecutors joined the defense this week in drafting the proposed order that Smiley signed Friday.

The gag order repeats court rules laid out in a new California law passed after the deluge of publicity in the O.J. Simpson murder trial. That law forbids attorneys from talking publicly about evidence in criminal cases.

Smiley’s order goes one step further by including all employees of Bradbury and Clayman as well as police investigators.

The order forbids Clayman and Bradbury from releasing “leads, information and gossip about the factual circumstances surrounding the charged crimes and their underlying investigation to members of any public information medium.”

It also requires that Bradbury and Clayman “take all reasonable steps to ensure that no member of their respective offices” makes out of court statements on the case or releases or authorizes the release of information.

And it orders Bradbury to “take all reasonable steps to ensure that no member of any law enforcement agency involved in the investigation” releases any information or allows it to be released.

Smiley said the restriction affects both sides in the case equally, while avoiding any restrictions on the media.

“It is not binding in any case upon the media,” he said.

Defense attorneys subpoenaed Daryl Kelley, a Times reporter, and William Overend, city editor of The Times’ Ventura County Edition, earlier this week in a bid to force them to reveal Times sources in the Haun case.

But the public defender’s office withdrew its subpoenas Friday morning after attorneys for The Times said the two would refuse to reveal sources or testify about unpublished information because the California shield law protects such information.

“The reason that we have the shield law is because news personnel are much less likely to be able to get information from sources if they’re going to spend their time testifying for one side or the other,” said Kelli L. Sager), an attorney representing The Times.

The Ventura County Grand Jury investigating a possible indictment against Haun called no witnesses Friday, though it was scheduled to question Michael Dally, the victim’s husband and Haun’s longtime lover.

But in Superior Court, Judge Robert C. Bradley rejected defense motions seeking to govern how the grand jury will continue its investigation into Haun’s alleged role in Dally’s death.

Bradley denied a defense request that he instruct the jurors on their duties and principles of the law, and that the court reporter keep a full record of the investigation without allowing any “off the record” conferences. He also refused defense requests that he screen grand jurors for any potential bias they may have that was fed by news reports on the Dally slaying.

Bradley said the grand jurors already have sworn to serve as fair and impartial reviewers of any evidence that they hear when considering the Haun case.