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Report Finds Prosecutor's Offer of Bar Tip in Exchange for Juror's Guilty Vote Was a Joke
The Recorder
November 23, 2009
Ronald Bass, consider yourself exonerated.
A report filed with the California Supreme Court last month expressly finds that the former San Francisco deputy attorney general was joking when he offered juror Zetta Southworth $10-$20 in exchange for a guilty vote in the mid-'80s death penalty trial of double-murderer Curtis Price.
"The manner in which the comment was made, in a conspiratorial fashion with a stranger, the surrounding circumstances of alcohol consumption in a bar, and Mr. Bass having earlier stated to Ms. Southworth, 'I cannot have contact with you,' suggests the intent of the remark was a joke," Humboldt County Superior Court Judge W. Bruce Watson, acting as an evidentiary referee, wrote in the eight-page report.
Defense lawyers for Price, now on death row for murdering a man in Southern California and a woman in Eureka, Calif., six days apart in 1983, raised the bribe allegations after Robert McConkey -- a bartender at Eureka's Waterfront Cafe -- told a local lawyer about it in 1995.
Price's lawyers argued that Bass and his co-counsel's wife, Geraldine Johnson, were having alcoholic drinks at the cafe during the death penalty trial when they encountered Southworth, who worked there as a cook. Before leaving, Price's attorneys claimed, Bass handed McConkey the money as a tip and made the suggestion that he share it with Southworth for a guilty vote.
The California Supreme Court in 2004 ordered an evidentiary hearing, which was finally held earlier this year in Eureka. The report by Watson found that Southworth's only direct interaction with Bass was when she brought them menus and made a food recommendation.
"Ms. Johnson testified Mr. Bass, upon seeing Ms. Southworth, held up his hands, moved away from her, telling her he could not speak to her, he had to maintain propriety," Watson wrote.
Testimony was provided during the evidentiary hearing by 11 individuals, including Bass, McConkey and Johnson. Southworth died in 1989.
Bass, who headed up the criminal unit of the San Francisco AG's office during most of the '90s, is now retired. He declined to comment Thursday.
San Francisco-based Deputy AG Peter Flores Jr., who represented the state during the hearing, said on Thursday that Watson's report was on the mark.
"There was never any bribe or attempted bribe," he said. "There was an offhand comment, a bar comment that was blown up to a habeas corpus claim."
Price's attorneys -- Jan Little, a partner with San Francisco's Keker & Van Nest, and Robert McGlasson, a high-profile death penalty defense lawyer from Decatur, Ga. -- didn't return phone calls seeking comment.
Flores said both sides have until Dec. 22 to file exceptions to Watson's findings. Flores said he doesn't anticipate filing any complaints.
The case is In re Price, S069685.
