Legal News

Superior Court judge says bribe offer was a joke

By Richard Binder

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge W. Bruce Watson, acting as an evidentiary referee, wrote a report filed with the California Supreme Court last month that found former San Francisco deputy attorney general Ronald Bass was indeed joking when he offered a juror money to vote guilty during the mid-'80s death penalty trial of double-murderer Curtis Price.

Defense lawyers for Price, now on death row for murdering a man in Southern California and a woman in Eureka, Calif., six days apart in 1983, raised the bribe allegations after a bartender at Eureka's Waterfront Cafe told a local lawyer about it in 1995. The attorneys argued that Bass was having drinks at the cafe during the trial when he encountered juror Zetta Southworth, who worked there as a cook, and handed the bartender a tip and suggested he share it with Southworth for a guilty vote.

The California Supreme Court in 2004 ordered an evidentiary hearing, which was finally held earlier this year in Eureka.

For the full story at The Recorder, click here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on November 23, 2009 (boomark / email).