LOS ANGELES (CNS) — A federal appeals court panel Monday rejected former Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy Baca’s appeal of his conviction on charges of obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.
The 76-year-old former sheriff, who has Alzheimer’s disease, was sentenced in May 2017 to three years in federal prison, but has remained free pending his appeal.
The appellate panel’s ruling does not automatically mean Baca will be going to prison. He could request a review by the full 9th Circuit or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During arguments before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel in November, Baca attorney Benjamin Coleman contended that the trial judge in the case had abused his discretion by barring jurors from hearing evidence of the former sheriff’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Coleman argued the ruling could have affected all of Baca’s criminal convictions and urged the appellate panel to overturn the guilty verdicts.
But the appellate panel found that the trial court “did not abuse its discretion” by rejecting as “unreliable” testimony about the extent of the disease’s impact on Baca when he lied to investigators.
“We find no basis for reversing,” the panel wrote. “... The government introduced sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude that Baca acted with (the) requisite intent.”
Baca’s trial lawyer, Nathan J. Hochman, saidthe defense disagreed “completely” with the “skimpy analysis and erroneous conclusions” reached by the appeals court in its seven-page opinion, “after we and the government submitted well over 150 pages of factual and legal arguments on the appeal.”
Hochman said he would seek further review from the court’s full panel of 11 judges.
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna applauded the appellate panel’s decision, saying it “confirms the principle that no one is above the law.”
“Prosecutors presented a fair and thorough case that demonstrated Mr. Baca acted corruptly by obstructing a federal grand jury investigation. Instead of cooperating with a federal investigation that ultimately was concerned about improving conditions in the county jails, Mr. Baca chose to obstruct and then lie to federal authorities,” he said in a prepared statement. “I am extremely proud of the prosecutors and the FBI agents whose work led to significant reforms in the Sheriff’s Department.”
During the November appeals court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Bram Alden said the lower court judge made the correct decision regarding the Alzheimer’s diagnosis, arguing that the Alzheimer’s evidence proffered by the defense expert witness was “unduly speculative” and based upon “unreliable methodology.”
Further, evidence of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis can be “extremely prejudicial” to a jury, Alden said.
Alden said the defense could not prove that Baca was actually suffering from Alzheimer’s disease at the time of the events for which he was convicted. All evidence supporting the Alzheimer’s claim, Alden said, was “anecdotal,” including incidents where the ex-sheriff had forgotten the name of a medication he was taking, that he was described by a co-worker as being “confused,” and that he had forgotten the last name of a colleague.
Coleman argued that Baca’s conviction for making false statements during an FBI interview in 2013 was the direct result of mild impairment caused by early stages of the disease. Baca was diagnosed with the disease in May 2014.
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