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| Tuesday, May 20 2008 1:10 PM
Last Updated: Tuesday, May 20 2008 7:33 AM
Bakersfield defense attorney Michael Gardina said Monday it felt like a great weight had been lifted after a judge dismissed a contempt of court inquiry against him and his former co-counsel Anthony Bryan.
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Vincent Brothers along with his lawyers Anthony Bryan (left) and Michael Gardina (right) listen to the jury's recommendation for the death sentence in May 2007.
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The two attorneys who together represented Vincent Brothers during his capital murder trial last year have spent the last several months fighting contempt allegations originally filed by Judge Michael Bush, who presided over the Brothers case.
In a written ruling dated May 9, Kern County Superior Court Judge John Oglesby dismissed all charges in the inquiry. His action effectively ends the inquiry, which has hung over the heads of the two attorneys since September.
“There is a reasonable and plausible explanation for the behavior of counsel that does not imply or suggest any inappropriate behavior,” Judge Oglesby wrote in addressing the allegation of presenting false testimony.
And in addressing an allegation that the attorneys disobeyed an order to provide a report to the prosecution, Oglesby indicated that Gardina and Bryan presented evidence “that makes it clear that the attorneys violated no discovery order.”
“It shows rather that they were acting in good faith,” Oglesby continued, “presenting a defense that they had reason to believe was not without merit.”
After reading Oglesby’s ruling Monday, Gardina — who is running for judge on the June 3 ballot — said he and Bryan are “weighing our options."
“Right now, I’m just going to enjoy the win,” Gardina said. “A great weight has been lifted. Judge Oglesby did the right thing under the circumstances.”
Brothers, a former elementary school vice principal, was convicted last year of killing his wife, their three young children, and his mother-in-law in 2003.
Brothers was found guilty and was sentenced to death last year.
During the long trial and pretrial hearings, both the prosecution and the defense traded barbs and accusations. At one point in 2006, the defense sent prosecutor Lisa Green two dozen long-stemmed roses as an apology for calling her and her team felons for allegedly coercing a witness.
Green sent the flowers back.
On the day of Brothers’ sentencing, Bush served Gardina and Bryan an order to show why they should not be held in contempt of court.
One of the issues involved a purported alibi for Brothers who testified he was involved in a traffic accident in Columbus, Ohio, about the time the family members were shot and stabbed to death in Bakersfield.
In the contempt allegation, Bush wanted to know why the defense didn’t give the prosecution a copy of an accident report that might have refuted the alibi.
In providing Bush and Oglesby with a copy of what turned out to be a dispatch readout, not an accident report, the defense intended to show that they did nothing unlawful.
Reached late Monday afternoon, Green said she was “extremely disappointed” by Oglesby’s ruling, especially his dismissal of the third charge, that the defense impugned the integrity of the trial court.
Oglesby wrote that it is “so minor as to warrant no further action and no holding of contempt.”
But Green was there during trial, and she said the disrespect and contempt Bush endured from the defense was beyond anything that could be excused by the passionate advocacy of a defendant — even in a high-stakes death penalty case.
“There was a pattern of disrespect,” Green said.
“I’m disappointed because it sets the bar so low for attorneys,” she said of Oglesby’s ruling. “There are no consequences for their behavior.”
Holding attorneys in contempt is rare for judges, and especially rare for Judge Bush, Green said.
“But if there’s a case that calls for it, this is it,” she said.
Green, who is running for Kern County district attorney, knows what it’s like to be on the wrong end of a judge’s opinion.
In November 2001, a state appeals court in Fresno reversed a child endangerment conviction of a Bakersfield woman after reprimanding Green for acting as both prosecutor and witness during the trial.
Bryan could not be reached for comment.