Judge Sentenced to Probation and Fined

A Santa Barbara County judge was sentenced Friday on two misdemeanor drunk driving charges after prosecutors reluctantly dropped a felony charge against her, ending a case that once threatened to force the judge from the bench.

The decision to drop the felony charge against Judge Diana R. Hall followed a split jury verdict Aug. 28. Hall was acquitted of another felony count of using a gun to dissuade a witness and three misdemeanor battery and abuse charges. Jurors voted to convict her on the two uncontested drunk driving charges.

Hall, 53, formerly chief criminal Santa Barbara County judge in Lompoc, was accused of having attacked her domestic partner, Deidra Dykeman, 39, during a drunken argument at their Santa Ynez Valley home Dec. 21. During a trial last month, Hall conceded that she had angrily thrown a phone on the floor. Dykeman testified that Hall had thrown the phone twice against a wall, breaking it in three pieces.

The charge of blocking a person from using a telephone could have been filed as a felony or a misdemeanor. But Judge Carol Koppel-Claypool, a visiting judge hearing Hall’s case, had made it clear to prosecutors that she would reduce any felony telephone conviction to a misdemeanor, which would have had little effect on Hall’s career.

After the judge lifted a gag order on lawyers, Assistant Dist. Atty. Kimberly Smith said prosecutors had seen little point in spending the time and money for a second trial.

Smith praised Dykeman, a program manager for Raytheon, for bringing the case forward.

“I admire Miss Dykeman’s fortitude in coming to court and enduring the character assassination she faced here,” Smith said outside of court. “I admire her strength and her credibility.”

While acquitting Hall of all the other charges except the drunk driving counts, jurors deadlocked on the telephone charge 11 to 1 in favor of a guilty verdict, a vote that often leads prosecutors to refile in the belief that guilty verdicts often follow in a second trial.

But Koppel-Claypool said Friday that she was accepting the motion to dismiss, partly because it was clear that jurors hadn’t believed most of Dykeman’s testimony, and that any damage to the phone had come after two initial 911 conversations and before a third over a second phone in another room.

Declaring that she was acting “in the interests of justice,” Koppel-Claypool, 64, a retired municipal court judge from Victorville, said that pursuing the telephone charge, in view of jurors’ clear belief that Hall had neither battered Dykeman nor threatened her with a gun, would violate the spirit of the law. Hall drove from her home after the 911 calls and was later arrested at gunpoint. After blood tests showed a blood alcohol level of .18%, she was charged with two overlapping counts, driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol level in excess of .08%, the legal limit.

Koppel-Claypool placed Hall on three years’ probation on the drunk driving charges, fined her $1,475 and ordered that she attend three Mothers Against Drunk Driving classes in the coming year. The judge also restricted Hall’s driving privileges for 90 days, ordered her into a state alcohol-training program and assessed her $125 for victim compensation. She rejected a plea by Smith that the judge serve three days in jail.

While Hall declined comment after Friday’s court session, defense lawyer Jack Earley described his client as “tremendously relieved.” He said she was planning to fill out her current six-year term on the bench in Santa Barbara County and consider her options later. Hall, suspended with pay since her arrest last year, already has been reassigned to civil cases.

“I think there is an awful lot of relief right now,” Earley said. “Going into trial was a very stressful period. While she always had confidence, it was a terrible ordeal having her entire personal life exposed in public.”

Throughout the trial, Koppel-Claypool held to a strict policy of keeping even routine court documents secret from the public. She often held meetings in chambers without disclosing details of what was being discussed. After she closed the courtroom during an August suppression hearing just before the start of trial, The Times protested and ultimately asked the 2nd District Court of Appeal to order the judge to open proceedings.

The appellate court ordered Santa Barbara officials to appear at an Oct. 9 hearing to explain why documents should remain sealed.

At the conclusion of sentencing Friday, Earley suggested to Koppel-Claypool that she consider unsealing more documents in view of the upcoming appellate hearing. She agreed, but on condition that jurors’ names be redacted from documents being released. Court officials were studying the case record Friday afternoon, and said transcripts probably would be released Monday. Koppel-Claypool defended her actions by saying she had been protecting the privacy of a third party.

Earley confirmed Friday that one topic kept secret by the judge had been a report that Hall might have been involved in another gun incident at least a decade earlier. He said the district attorney’s office had attempted to locate someone who could substantiate that report, but had failed.