Blake Witness Would Have to Openly Testify, Judge Rules

A judge ruled Thursday that a potential witness in the Robert Blake murder trial must testify in open court about a statement allegedly made by Marlon Brando’s son that someone should shoot Blake’s wife.

The request came during a hearing before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp in a Van Nuys courtroom jammed with news media and spectators.

Blake, 69, awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, sat at the defense table and mostly stared straight ahead during the hourlong proceeding. His co-defendant, Earle S. Caldwell, sat behind him.

Defense attorney Thomas A. Mesereau Jr. had asked that Dianne Mattson be allowed to testify during a special pretrial session to preserve her testimony and protect her safety because Brando’s son, Christian, has allegedly threatened to kill Mattson.

Mesereau said Mattson is scared of Christian Brando, her former employer, who she says has a “hair-trigger temper.” She witnessed Christian Brando’s “very violent” and “physically destructive” behavior shortly after she began working for him as a caretaker in October 2000, according to court papers.

It was during her employment that Mattson overheard a speakerphone conversation among Christian Brando and retired stuntmen Ronald “Duffy” Hambleton and Jerry Lee Petty in which Christian Brando said somebody ought to put a bullet through Bakley’s head, Mesereau said. Bakley once claimed Christian Brando was the father of her youngest daughter, but DNA tests later proved that Blake was the girl’s father.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Gregory A. Dohi argued that the defense sought the special procedures, usually reserved for terminally ill witnesses, to “preserve dubious testimony in support of the far-fetched notion” that Brando coincidentally solicited the same retired stuntman.

“Dianne Mattson, so far as we know, does not suffer from any terminal illness,” Dohi said in his opposing motion. “She has not changed her residence in 20 years and mentioned no plans to move. There is no reason to take extraordinary steps to preserve inadmissible testimony.”

Schempp concluded that there was no evidence to support Mesereau’s claims that Mattson would be unable to testify at trial, which is set to begin on Feb. 9, 2004.

After Schempp announced her decision, Mattson stood weeping beside her lawyer, Brian Oxman, who said his client was “absolutely terrified” of the consequences of testifying in open court.

“She was sitting in the back of the courtroom saying, ‘Oh, my God, oh my God, what’s going to happen to me?’ ” Oxman said. “I don’t know how she is going to come back in February.”

Schempp said she wanted Mattson to testify in court like other witnesses, rather than on videotape, so that a jury could fully assess her testimony.

Blake, the former star of the television show “Baretta,” is accused of fatally shooting Bakley, 44, more than two years ago as she sat in his car near a Studio City restaurant where they had just dined. He also is accused of soliciting two stuntmen, one of them Hambleton, and conspiring with his bodyguard, Caldwell, to kill her. He faces life in prison if convicted.

After being held without bail for 11 months, Blake was released from the Men’s Central Jail on March 14.

A condition of his release on $1.5-million bond was that he be placed under house arrest and hooked up to an electronic monitor device to ensure that he stays home.