Revision of Testimony in Judge’s Assault Trial

Changing her testimony from previous accounts, the alleged victim in a battery case that could cost a Santa Barbara County judge her job told a jury on Thursday that she had hidden one of the judge’s two guns after the judge threatened to commit suicide last year.

Deidra Dykeman, 39, a program manager at Raytheon in Goleta, had repeatedly said in earlier statements that she hid a .25-caliber Beretta pistol from Judge Diana R. Hall simply because she doesn’t like guns.

The change came in response to one of several written questions from the jury permitted by Judge Carol Koppel-Claypool after a day of testimony by Dykeman that produced several conflicting statements.

Hall, 53, is accused of two felonies and four misdemeanors connected to an alleged drunken confrontation with Dykeman, her partner, at their Santa Ynez Valley home last year. According to Dykeman, the trouble started when Hall exploded in anger after a day of drinking and threatened to shoot one of their two dogs if Dykeman did not leave.

Dykeman then made a 911 call saying Hall had broken one of her cordless telephones, pulled her hair and started walking about the house holding her second gun, a .38-caliber revolver she kept by her bed.

Although Dykeman had stressed that she made the call because of the threat to her dog, she changed that position when defense lawyer Jack Earley asked if she remembered telling a sheriff’s detective that she never really thought the judge would kill the dog.

“Yes, I remember telling him that,” Dykeman said.

Earlier in the day, Judge Koppel-Claypool agreed in part with a Times request to release some transcripts from several previously closed hearings in the case.

She refused, however, to release other documents and transcripts on the grounds that they would overwhelmingly prejudice Hall’s right to a fair trial.

Attorney Susan Seager, representing The Times, said it will file for a writ of mandate today with the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Ventura to force the release of all records in the case.