An appeals court on Monday overturned a conviction for an ex-UCLA gynecologist serving 11 years in prison on charges of sexually abusing patients after determining that the trial judge failed to inform his lawyers that some of the jurors raised questions about the English proficiency of one of the panel members. <\/p>\n
A three-justice panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered that the once-renowned cancer expert, James Heaps, 69, be sent back for a retrial on the charges involving the two patients he was convicted of abusing.<\/p>\n
In October 2022, after a complex two-month jury trial, Heaps was convicted of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration involving the two patients. Jurors acquitted him of abusing two other patients and deadlocked on charges involving four more patients. In April 2023, a judge sentenced him to 11 years in prison.<\/p>\n
The University of California system paid nearly $700 million to settle lawsuits brought by hundreds of Heaps\u2019 accusers.<\/p>\n
John Manly, who represented more than 200 former patients in a lawsuit that resulted in the settlement with UCLA, said the reversal of Heaps\u2019 conviction is \u201can indictment of California\u2019s criminal justice system which allows criminals to threaten public safety and prey upon the most vulnerable.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cThese brave survivors suffered through a four-year ordeal of prosecution and trial resulting in an 11-year prison sentence for this monster,\u201d he said. \u201cNow they are being told that they must start over. … Our criminal justice system needs reforms that put victims first.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
During the jury deliberations, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Carter, who presided over the trial, sent a judicial assistant, Luis Corrales, into the jury room to speak to the jury about a note sent by the foreperson describing the jurors\u2019 \u201ccollective concern\u201d that Juror No. 15 \u201cdid not speak English sufficiently to deliberate and had already made up his mind,\u201d the appeals panel wrote.<\/p>\n
Juror No. 15 had been an alternate on the jury, but on Oct. 18 he replaced Juror No. 8. Only an hour later, the jury sent the note, signed by the foreperson. The note stated, \u201cWe have observed that the language barrier with Juror [No.] 15 is preventing us from properly deliberating. Juror [No.] 15 was not able to understand calls to vote guilty or not guilty, and expressed to us that his limited English interfered with his understanding of the testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judicial assistant spoke to the jury in English and, at the request of Juror No. 15, in Spanish. \u201cAt no time did the trial judge inquire of the jury or inform trial counsel of the note\u2019s existence,\u201d the appeals panel said, adding that the conversations with the judicial assistant were not transcribed.<\/p>\n
Heaps\u2019 defense lawyer was not informed of the note or of the communications, and the trial proceeded to a verdict. <\/p>\n
Leonard Levine, Heaps\u2019 trial lawyer, in a declaration to the appeals panel, said that had he been informed of the note, he would have sought to determine whether Juror No. 15 was \u201cqualified to serve\u201d and investigated the juror\u2019s limited English and the jury\u2019s view that Juror No. 15\u2019s mind \u201cis already made up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Court of Appeal found \u201cthe trial court\u2019s handling of the note deprived defendant of his constitutional right to counsel at a critical stage of his trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe failure to notify counsel about the jury\u2019s note and the judicial assistant\u2019s ex parte communications with the jury during deliberations amounted to a violation of the defendant\u2019s Sixth Amendment right to counsel,\u201d the panel found. The three-judge panel noted that it did not assess the juror\u2019s English ability; rather, that was the shared opinion of the juror\u2019s fellow jurors.<\/p>\n
The appellate court found that the prosecution failed to meet its burden to demonstrate, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the constitutional error was harmless. As a result, the panel reversed the conviction and remanded it for a new trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognize the burden on the trial court and, regrettably, on the witnesses, in requiring retrial of a case involving multiple victims and delving into the conduct of intimate medical examinations. The importance of the constitutional right to counsel at critical junctures in a criminal trial gives us no other choice,\u201d acting Presiding Justice Helen I. Bendix wrote on behalf of the panel, with Associate Justices Gregory J. Weingart and Michelle C. Kim concurring.<\/p>\n
The ruling overturns Heaps\u2019 convictions for sexual battery by fraud, a crime jurors found involved separate acts of violence or threats of violence, two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious person by fraudulent representation and two counts of sexual battery by fraud. He is currently at California\u2019s Correctional Training Facility in Soledad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An appeals court on Monday overturned a conviction for an ex-UCLA gynecologist serving 11 years in prison on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[78421,48025,5744,78418,78419,37188,78417,78416,48,52,51,1429,78420,47,50,49,23178,47857,1584,15837,1428],"class_list":["post-161601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-california-system","tag-conviction","tag-count","tag-james-heaps","tag-judicial-assistant","tag-juror","tag-juror-no","tag-jury-deliberation","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawyer","tag-limited-english","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-note","tag-panel","tag-patient","tag-sexual-battery","tag-trial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}