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Davis Enterprise, The (CA)
Hirschfield case judge won't exclude evidence
Defense says map found during prison search should not be allowed
Joel DavisSpecial to The Enterprise
Published: July 29, 2007
SACRAMENTO — Motion commotion — much of it centered on the legality of
a jail search — continues to slow the prosecution of the man accused of
killing two UC Davis sweethearts in 1980.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Jaime R. Román, one of
several judges who has heard the unwieldy case, denied suspect Richard
J. Hirschfield's latest motion to exclude evidence from his
upcoming trial in the horrific 1980 murders of UC Davis freshmen John
Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves.The sweethearts were abducted in
Davis, bound in duct tape, and killed in Rancho Cordova after Riggins
was beaten and Gonsalves raped.The trial, scheduled for a soft-date start of Sept. 20, is being slowed by motions made by Hirschfield to exclude evidence that was allowed at his preliminary hearing, which started in January and concluded in March.The
most startling evidence revealed to the public at the preliminary
hearing concerned the search of the Washington state prison cell where Hirschfield was serving time for a child-molestation conviction that has since been overturned on appeal.The
search was conducted by a McNeil Island (Wash.) Corrections Center
official in November 2002 because Sacramento detectives had a warrant
only to get DNA samples from Hirschfield following a DNA match
linking him to the December 1980 killings. It allegedly yielded a
California map with the name "Sabrina" and the words "Davis" and
"Sacto" pinned to it.The cell search, which the defense contends
violates the defendant's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable
searches and seizures, also yielded "a cross between a journal and a
story" that described an older man and younger people camping in the
woods, a journal whose contents the jail official conducting the search
said made her "uncomfortable."The jail search has been a hot-button issue for Hirschfield's
court-appointed attorney, Linda Parisi, a part-time law professor known
for her vast knowledge of case law and flamboyant apparel. She said she
plans to appeal Friday's ruling."We have repeatedly held that
prisoners are not beyond the reach of the Constitution," Parisi told
the court. "There are expectations of privacy in a prison cell."Deputy
District Attorney Dawn Bladet, the lone prosecutor in the case,
successfully argued that the Supreme Court and lower courts have found
that searches in crimes of magnitude are allowed."Cells are
routinely checked where there are legitimate security concerns," Bladet
countered. "There was no violation of federal law, no violation of
Washington (state) law, it was a standard cell search, it happens all
the time."
Hirschfield, 58, has had at least two jailhouse fights since his
August 2004 arrest, one of them resulting in a hip fracture that
required surgery that slowed his prosecution. While he used a cane at
his preliminary hearing earlier this year, he was back in a wheelchair
on Friday, with what Parisi described only as "significant health
issues."Families and friends of the victims are frustrated by the case's glacial pace; many believe Hirschfield is playing a delay game that has also been slowed by court staffing issues.
Hirschfield was identified by a DNA cold hit in August of 2002,
arrested in September 2004, did not enter an arraignment plea until
last fall, and had a longer-than-predicted preliminary hearing earlier
this year.Joseph Hirschfield, a younger brother of
Richard who was living in Rancho Cordova at the time of the slayings,
implicated his involvement in a suicide note in 2002 after being
confronted with the DNA match at his rural Oregon home, where he gassed
himself in a car in his barn. Preliminary hearing Judge Trena H.
Burger-Plavan found enough evidence to bound Richard Hirschfield
over for trial without considering the suicide note. Legal experts say
that was a wise decision, as excluding the suicide note leaves its
admissibility for the trial judge and is one less thing for both sides
to jostle over pretrial.While his trial is scheduled to start in
September, it is more likely to start in 2008 at the earliest, with
jury selection alone expected to take months.— Former Enterprise
reporter Joel Davis is the author of a book on this case. Further
information is available at www.justicewaits.com.
Copyright, 2007, The Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.
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