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The fate of an Orange County Superior Court judge who shot and killed his wife during an argument at their Anaheim Hills home is once again in the hands of a jury, a little more than a month after his first murder trial ended with an earlier panel of jurors deadlocked.Jurors in the retrial of Jeffrey Ferguson began their deliberations on Monday afternoon following a weeklong trial in Superior Court in a Santa Ana courtroom. Like the earlier panel, the current jurors are tasked with deciding if Ferguson committed second-degree murder, a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter or if he should be acquitted of all criminal charges.
The prosecution alleges that an inebriated Ferguson was angered at his wife, Sheryl, mocking him and pulled out a Glock .40-caliber pistol he carried at nearly all times in an ankle holster and shot her while the couple and their adult son were watching the television show “Breaking Bad” at their Anaheim Hills home.Ferguson, during testimony in both the original trial and the retrial, described fumbling the firearm after his shoulder gave out while he was trying to take the firearm out of his ankle holster and place it on a table and inadvertently firing the fatal gunshot.
An accidental shooting would mean that no crime was committed, the defense argued.The previous jury deliberated over nine days — longer than the first trial itself — before deadlocking 11 to 1 in favor of second-degree murder. The hold out juror was apparently backing an involuntary manslaughter conviction.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter — who is presiding over the case to avoid a conflict of interest among Ferguson’s judicial colleagues on the Orange County bench — pushed for a rapid turnaround to a retrial after the initial mistrial.Closing arguments presented to jurors were largely the same in both trials.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt once again outlined two ways jurors could reach a second-degree murder conviction — by determining that Ferguson intentionally fired the fatal gunshot, or instead that by handling a loaded gun while drunk Ferguson acted with reckless disregard for his wife’s safety resulting in her death.“Amazingly, he somehow grabbed the gun and it went off,” the prosecutor told jurors. “It (the gunshot) hit the victim right in the center mass, the person he was arguing with.
”Defense Attorney Cameron Talley countered that the case was much more complicated, criticizing the prosecutor for not choosing to solely argue whether they believed Ferguson intentionally killed his wife or whether he simply acted in such a negligent manner that he was responsible for her death.“If it is so simple, why can’t the government make up their mind about what theory it is?” Talley asked. “Instead there is this smorgasbord approach.
”For more than an hour following the shooting, Ferguson made a lengthy series of seemingly incriminating statements that were captured on cameras worn by officers and inside the Anaheim Police Station.At times Ferguson wept for his wife and his son and castigated himself with self-loathing. At other points he bragged about his accomplishments during a lengthy career as a prosecutor and a judge.
At one point — in comments shown to jurors during both trials — Ferguson said to himself “I killed her. Ladies and Gentleman of the jury, convict my ass. I did it.
”Ferguson drew the ire of Judge Hunter by embarking on what she described as a “press tour” that included multiple interviews between the mistrial and the retrial. During an appearance on Inside Edition, Ferguson said that he and his wife were “just bickering like Lucy and Desi” before the judge said he accidentally shot and killed her.Jurors deliberated for around an hour and a half Monday before leaving for the day.
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