Posted on 04/03/2002 8:34:40 AM PST by fivecatsandadog
It was the kind of language that would make even Larry Flynt blush.
Last year, a man charged with stalking his former co-workers spent an entire trial berating lawyers and court personnel in such explicit terms that members of the public began showing up just to watch the spectacle.
At sentencing, after listening to the defendant blast nearly everyone in the courtroom, San Diego Superior Court Judge William Mudd decided he had heard enough.
Muzzle him! Mudd commanded. Four bailiffs promptly stuck a gag in the defendant's mouth. The man spent the rest of the hearing grunting into a piece of cloth.
It was a typical bit of improvisation from Mudd, who doesn't feel overly restrained by diplomatic niceties. If someone in his courtroom acts like a jerk, Mudd is happy to treat him like one.
During his career on the San Diego bench, Mudd – who has been assigned to preside over the David Westerfield murder trial – has developed a reputation as something of a maverick.
He has a habit of saying what's on his mind, regardless of whom he might offend. One lawyer recalls watching Mudd peer sternly at a defendant and pronounce the man "a bum."
The judge has also made bold sentencing decisions that haven't always endeared him to the San Diego-based 4th District Court of Appeal. An appellate-court justice once sarcastically referred to Mudd as "His Highness."
Defense lawyers complain because Mudd can be an extremely tough sentencer. Prosecutors have been known to wince at Mudd's willingness to be blunt even to the victims of a crime.
But most lawyers like him, even if they aren't always thrilled by some of his judicial decisions. "He is a man of absolute upright principle," said Deputy Public Defender Kathleen Coyne. "He will do what he believes to be the right thing regardless of the consequences."
Last week, the county's criminal supervising judge assigned Mudd to handle the trial of Westerfield, the 50-year-old Sabre Springs engineer accused of abducting and killing his 7-year-old neighbor, Danielle van Dam. The trial is scheduled for next month and will probably receive as much media coverage as any in San Diego history.
Mudd, who was appointed to the Superior Court in 1988 by then-Gov. George Deukmejian, is no stranger to high-profile cases. In 1996, he handled the trial of Danny Palm, a retired Navy commander accused of killing a neighborhood bully in the Spring Valley neighborhood of Dictionary Hill.
Court TV televised the trial nationally in a case that focused on whether Palm was a vigilante who took the law in his own hands or a neighborhood hero who acted on behalf of others when law enforcement wouldn't.
Lawyers in the Palm trial, and lawyers who have appeared before Mudd on other cases, say he runs a tight courtroom and won't tolerate showboating. Whether he will allow the Westerfield trial to be televised is a decision he hasn't yet made.
"I don't think he's going to let anything get out of hand – that's not his style," said criminal-defense attorney Peter J. Hughes, who has been practicing in San Diego for several decades. "I tell you right now, he's going to be in charge."
The Palm case was notable not just for its media attention but for its outcome. The jury convicted Palm of second-degree murder, which carries a potential life sentence. But in a highly unusual move, Mudd reduced the charge to manslaughter and sentenced Palm to 10 years in prison.
"Not all victims come into court completely pure and totally innocent," Mudd said at the time. "In the real world, occasionally victims bring about their own death."
During his career, Mudd, who declined to comment for this article, has made it known that he dislikes the rigid sentencing laws in California, saying these laws don't give judges enough flexibility to fashion fair punishments.
In 1994, Mudd sentenced a 34-year-old San Diego man named Jesus Romero to six years in prison for cocaine possession, even though prosecutors wanted a life term under the state's three-strikes law because Romero had two prior burglary convictions.
Prosecutors appealed Mudd's sentence, saying he had no authority to ignore Romero's prior convictions. The case wound up before the California Supreme Court. In 1996, in a ruling with enormous implications throughout the state, the high court sided with Mudd, giving judges discretion to disregard a defendant's prior strikes in cases where justice dictates a sentence of less than life.
Other sentences handed down by Mudd have wound up before the 4th District Court of Appeal. During one such hearing, Justice Richard Huffman began the proceeding by asking the prosecutor, "What has His Highness done now?," according to attorney Greg Cannon, the defense lawyer in the case.
Huffman wouldn't comment about Mudd for this story.
Before taking the bench, Mudd, now 57, was a civil lawyer for 12 years and also worked in the San Diego City Attorney's Office. Before becoming a lawyer, he served in the Army Reserves and suffered serious facial injuries in a military vehicle accident in 1969. He's now on the board of the Disabled American Veterans Industries.
Mudd has presided over at least one other high-profile death penalty case. That was the case of Frederick Davidson, a San Diego State University graduate student charged with fatally shooting three engineering professors in 1996.
Early in the case, Davidson's lawyers asked for more time to prepare. Family members of the victims responded with a series of angry e-mails demanding speedy justice.
On the day he was to decide whether to postpone the trial, Mudd looked down from the bench, stared at the family members of the three dead men and began giving them a candid lecture about the criminal justice system. He noted that the prosecution was unwilling to settle the case for anything less than the death sentence.
And in death-penalty cases, he explained, the rules were different, the level of scrutiny was immeasurably higher, and he wasn't about to give some appeals court the chance to second-guess his decision 10 or 12 years down the line. If the defense wanted more time to prepare their case, they were going to get it, he said.
It was the kind of lecture many other judges might not have had the fortitude to deliver.
"When the state makes the decision to take the life of another person, the ground rules, if you will, change dramatically, because the state is seeking the ultimate price from the individual: His life," he told the victims' families that day.
"Now, will that bring closure? I don't know. That's for you folks to decide."
Three months later, the widows of the slain professors went to District Attorney Paul Pfingst and pleaded with him to allow Davidson to plead guilty in return for the death penalty being dropped. They wanted to get on with their lives, they said.
The case was settled before trial with the prosecution offering, and the defendant accepting, a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
I can't wait. Let's roll!
Bye now.
sw
It was a typical bit of improvisation from Mudd, who doesn't feel overly restrained by diplomatic niceties. If someone in his courtroom acts like a jerk, Mudd is happy to treat him like one.
Tis great.. :)
HE'S from LIBERAL BERKLEY. :D --I can't find the one about the prosecuting attny dern it. They described his team as top notch or something like that.
By Alex Roth UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 23, 2002
Fellow lawyers tend to make references to dogs when they talk about criminal defense attorney Steven Feldman.
They call him a "pit bull" or "a trial dog," or they compare him to a dog with a bone. They mean these things as a compliment – for the most part.
Feldman is the attorney for David Westerfield, the self-employed Sabre Springs engineer who was arrested yesterday in the disappearance of 7-year-old Danielle van Dam.
A former University of California Berkeley student activist, Feldman has a reputation as one of the most tenacious and talented criminal defense attorneys in San Diego. His colleagues in the legal community talk about his relentless work habits, his withering cross-examinations and his obsessive attention to detail. SNIP
Prosecutor Richard McCue said Feldman comes across as "a noisy, aggressive guy" and "a jerk." He tends to raise objections at a rapid-fire pace and isn't willing to concede even the most minor point.
The article about Feldman: "Prosecutor Richard McCue said Feldman comes across as "a noisy, aggressive guy" and "a jerk." He tends to raise objections at a rapid-fire pace and isn't willing to concede even the most minor point. "
This can't be a coincidence...nah, can't be. :)
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