Retrial Sought Over Prosecutor on Jury

A Ventura County Municipal Court judge who allowed a prosecutor to serve on a jury that convicted an Oxnard man of heroin intoxication drew criticism Tuesday from the public defender’s office and a motion by Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury’s office for a new trial.

Judge Steven Hintz is scheduled to hear a motion today that William Lopez, 28, be retried.

Lopez originally requested the new trial because he was unable to summon his own witnesses during a one-day trial before Hintz.

Bradbury’s office said it joined the action to avoid a conflict of interest in a case where one deputy district attorney, Terence M. Kilbride, was a juror and another served as prosecutor.

Lopez acted as his own lawyer in the trial that ended Aug. 2.

The jury elected Kilbride as its foreman, then deliberated 15 minutes before finding Lopez guilty of being under the influence of a controlled substance.

Hintz sentenced Lopez to 330 days in jail, which Lopez admitted Tuesday was partly based on seven prior convictions on charges of narcotics intoxication.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Edward F. Brodie said Tuesday that the district attorney’s office is joining Lopez’s motion for a new trial to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

“We don’t feel anything was unjust about his conviction,” said Brodie, the county’s chief narcotics prosecutor. “But we fully intend to try the case again.”

However, the Ventura County public defender’s office said Hintz neglected his duties by not citing the apparent conflict of interest caused by Kilbride’s jury duty.

“The problem I have is I think that the judge has the general duty to see that justice is done,” said Assistant Public Defender Duane Dammeyer. “And the judge should be as concerned with the appearance of impropriety as with actual impropriety.”

Hintz declined Tuesday to discuss the Lopez case since it is still under his jurisdiction.

The prosecutor in the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kent Baker, said he attempted during jury selection to avoid any conflict of interest by asking the court to excuse Kilbride.

But when Lopez vehemently insisted on having Kilbride join the jury, Baker said, he withdrew his objections.

“I made the decision, ‘All right, if he thinks he’s going to get a fair trial . . . he can proceed that way.’ ” And Baker said he worried that Kilbride might be more critical of the evidence than would an average juror.

Lopez said Tuesday in an interview at the Ventura County Jail that he originally thought Kilbride was a doctor, after misreading Kilbride’s wife’s occupation on a juror questionnaire.

Lopez said he did not learn until midway through the trial that he had put a prosecutor on his own jury.

But even after he realized that Kilbride was a deputy district attorney, Lopez said, he did not worry that he would not get a fair trial.

“He’s a D.A.,” Lopez said. “He should know how much the police officers are telling the truth and how much they’re not.”

Lopez said he requested the new trial because he had been unable to contact a friend who was present when he was arrested.

He said he also had been unable to reach an Oxnard police booking officer who heard him ask to be taken to a hospital for a urine test rather than being tested for heroin intoxication at the police station.

Kilbride said, “I tried as best I could to be a fair and impartial juror.”

Kilbride said he did not mention that he was a prosecutor, and the other jurors did not ask.

He said he was nominated as the jury foreman by three women jurors who said, “Let’s make the guy in the suit the foreman.”

Kilbride said he recommended a straw poll in the opening moments of deliberations, before the jurors even began discussing the case.

The vote was 11 to 1 for conviction.

But as the lunch break approached, the jurors discussed the case for a few more minutes, then voted unanimously for conviction, Kilbride said.

Kilbride said he took part in the discussion. “But my observations were like the others: ‘This is what I remember the testimony to be,’ ” he said.

Baker said the evidence showed that Oxnard police detained Lopez near Cooper Road during a routine traffic stop for driving with expired license plates. Officer Richard Anderson testified that when Lopez got out of the car, he was shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet and that his pupils were constricted, Baker said.

Anderson took Lopez to Oxnard police headquarters, where he and other officers trained to recognize such symptoms observed that Lopez had clammy hands, warm upper arms and other signs of heroin intoxication, Baker said.

When Lopez refused to give a blood or urine sample, police arrested him, Baker said.