Motion Alleges Bias in Haun Case

Defense attorneys for murder suspect Diana Haun have filed a motion accusing Ventura County prosecutors of arbitrarily seeking the death penalty because the victim in Haun’s case, Sherri Dally, was a white woman.

The motion, which targets an alleged racial and gender bias in the district attorney’s office, is expected to be argued Monday before Superior Court Judge Frederick A. Jones.

Defense attorneys are asking Jones to dismiss two special circumstances--the factors required for prosecutors to invoke the death penalty--charges against Haun, 35, and co-defendant Michael Dally, 36, because of the alleged bias.

Prosecutors declined comment on the defense motion, filed this week in Superior Court.

“We are not going to make any comment on it,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth said Wednesday. “We will save our comments for the courtroom.”

Defense attorneys suggest that race and gender play a significant role in the prosecution’s decision to seek death in capital murder cases in Ventura County.

A study of 24 special circumstance murder cases since 1987 shows that prosecutors made the decision to seek the death penalty 83% of the time when the victim was a white woman but never when the victim was a minority male, the motion said.

“Why is it that is happening?” Deputy Public Defender Neil B. Quinn asked Wednesday. “That is what this motion seeks to answer.”

In his motion, Quinn, who represents Haun, said the data compiled by a law clerk for the public defender’s office demonstrate a “compelling need” for a hearing on the issue.

He has also requested statistical information from the district attorney’s office as it relates to prosecutors’ decisions to pursue the death penalty in a handful of first-degree murder cases.

Defense attorney James Farley, who represents Dally, said Wednesday that he plans to join in Quinn’s motion Monday on behalf of his client.

“It’s up to an individual prosecutor, and his normal prejudices, who gets death and who doesn’t,” Farley said. “I think the motion as filed is well-taken, and will be argued, I hope, successfully.”

Dally and Haun, former Oxnard grocery clerks, are charged with first-degree murder for allegedly abducting and slaying Dally’s wife, Sherri, 35, of Ventura.

They are also charged with two special circumstances alleging that the killing was done while lying in wait and for financial gain. Their trial is set for May 12.

Prosecutors say the couple plotted to kill Dally, a homemaker and day-care operator, but that Haun was the one who actually stabbed and bludgeoned her to death on May 6. Dally’s remains were found June 1 in a ravine north of Ventura.