Judge Withdraws From Tuffree Retrial

Ventura County Superior Court Judge Allan L. Steele told attorneys Tuesday that he will not preside over Daniel Allan Tuffree’s retrial, even though he is the judge most familiar with the high-profile murder case.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys said it was an unusual move for Steele to send the case back to the presiding criminal court judge for reassignment, and predicted that it would create a time-consuming workload for a new judge.

“It means some other judge has to get up to speed,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Pete Kossoris, who objected to Steele’s decision at a morning meeting between the judge and attorneys handling the Tuffree case.

During that session, Steele announced that he was sending the case to Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. for reassignment, but he did not offer an explanation as to why.

“It seems to me since I am not going to be the one to retry the case, we might as well get it to the one who is going to retry the case,” Steele told the attorneys. “I will send it down to [Courtroom] 14.”

Steele also demanded that bulky exhibits from the six-week murder trial be removed from his courtroom. He asked that prosecutors take away a large model of Tuffree’s home and the actual kitchen window removed from the house.

The broken window, mounted in a large wooden frame, prevents Steele from seeing people in his courtroom, he said, and is a safety risk. “Our court staff does not have the ability to take care of it,” Steele said. “It will break.”

And with that, Steele essentially removed himself and all aspects of the case from his courtroom.

When the case was called less than an hour later before Judge Campbell, the 49-year-old Tuffree stood beside his attorney dressed in jailhouse blues, flanked by half a dozen other defendants.

Tuffree was supposed to be assigned a new trial date. But Deputy Public Defender Howard Asher asked that the matter be postponed one week to allow him time to meet with Tuffree and discuss the retrial.

“It seems apparent to me that Judge Steele doesn’t want it,” Asher said after the hearing. “It is common procedure for a judge to keep the same case on a mistrial,” Asher said. But he was quick to add: “This is not your normal case or normal circumstances.”

Steele declared a mistrial in the Tuffree case last week when the jury deadlocked 9 to 3 on a first-degree murder charge in the fatal shooting of a Simi Valley police officer. Tuffree, a former schoolteacher, was accused of shooting Officer Michael Clark to death Aug. 4, 1995, during a gunfight with police at his Simi Valley home.

Although the jury was hung on the murder charge, it found Tuffree guilty of attempted murder and armed assault for firing at another police officer during the gun battle. Tuffree waived his sentencing Tuesday until the murder charge is resolved.

The case began with jury selection last spring and the trial started July 29. Sixty witnesses testified during the lengthy trial and 176 pieces of evidence were presented, including the kitchen window through which the gunfight started. By asking that the case be assigned to a new judge, attorneys said Steele has placed the burden on a new judge who will have to review hundreds of pages of legal documents filed before and during the trial.

“It could take weeks if that is all the judge did,” Asher said.

The new judge assigned will have a tight timeline to become familiar with the case too, because Tuffree’s speedy trial rights require that his retrial begin within 60 days.

Tuffree waived a week of that time Tuesday, however, to discuss a trial date with his attorney. The date of the retrial is scheduled to be set on Oct. 22, which means Tuffree’s trial must commence by Dec. 22, Asher said.

Asher said it is possible that Campbell could reassign the case back to Steele but acknowledges that that is unlikely.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald C. Janes said it is a general practice for the same judge to hear a case when a mistrial is declared. “I think it expedites the process in most cases because they have been through it once before,” he said.

But Janes added that because it takes less time for a judge to become familiar with a case than an attorney, there should be adequate time for a new judge to prepare for the retrial.

“I would expect that another judge would be able to do that,” he said. “The judge’s role is somewhat different than the attorneys’. There is a different level of preparation.”