State Appeals Court Considers Halting First Rampart Trial

A state appeals court on Wednesday sent a strong signal that it is considering halting the first criminal trial to arise from the Rampart police corruption scandal unless prosecutors are permitted to call five surprise witnesses.

Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor last week excluded the witnesses, saying prosecutors had not told defense attorneys about them until the eve of trial. Prosecutors appealed her ruling.

Late Wednesday, a three-justice panel of the 2nd District of the state Court of Appeal gave defense attorneys 24 hours to explain why the trial shouldn’t be delayed or the witnesses permitted to testify against their clients.

“They didn’t issue a stay today,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick D. Moran, who filed the appeal. “I think they’re trying to avoid it.”

Prosecutors were heartened by the development, while the defense claimed it was again being sandbagged by prosecutors, forced to research and file an eleventh hour appellate brief while getting ready for a trial that begins Friday.

Connor ruled last week that prosecutors could not use the witnesses: young women at the scene of an alleged gun-planting.

Prosecutors had hoped the women, who were bystanders and had no gang ties, would back the story of their chief witness, cop-turned-informant Rafael Perez. Perez claimed Rampart officers planted a gun under a car driven by one of the women to frame two gang members.

The women would contradict the version of events in the original police report, which Perez has claimed was fabricated.

The defense is expected to mount a vigorous challenge to Perez’s credibility. Perez already has admitting lying and framing innocent people, and is under federal investigation in connection with at least two murders.

Connor said she excluded the witnesses because the defense didn’t have adequate time to investigate their stories.

According to court papers, prosecutors would not provide the women’s addresses and phone numbers, and would not allow the defense to interview the witnesses.

The appeals court signaled its readiness by giving the defense a tight deadline, ordering that the response be filed by 4 p.m. today.

Excluding a witness is one of the most severe sanctions short of dismissing a case. The appellate court said it is seeking an explanation why Connor did not impose less severe sanctions, such as delaying the trial.

The defense had refused to go along with a postponement, saying their clients wanted to clear their names as soon as possible.

Four Rampart officers, Sgts. Edward Ortiz and Brian Liddy and Officers Paul Harper and Michael Buchanan, are on trial on charges of conspiring to obstruct or pervert justice. They are accused of planting evidence and lying on police reports or in court.

Attorney Harland W. Braun, who represents Buchanan, said he believed prosecutors were trying to dump extra work on the defense at the eleventh hour. He also suggested that the prosecution was trying to stall the politically charged case until after the district attorney’s election in November.

“I think they were deliberately waiting,” Braun said. “The district attorney took a week to file their brief, and we’re being given 24 hours. It’s not fair.”

Meanwhile, the same panel of judges also ruled Wednesday that prosecutors weren’t entitled to personnel records of 82 Los Angeles police officers listed as potential witnesses at the trial.

It overturned Connor’s order to turn over the records.