LOS ANGELES — Two years after a former University of California, Los Angeles, gynecologist was convicted of sex abuse and sentenced to 11 years in prison, an attorney working to prepare an appeal of the case stumbled across an astounding find for the defense counsel.
A note by the jury’s foreperson, a designated spokesperson for the jury, had been sent to the judge expressing concern that one of the jurors did not have sufficient English to carry out his duties and deliberate. The juror was an alternate who was brought in after another juror had a medical issue and two days before the verdict. The judge never shared that information with the prosecution or defense attorneys.
“That note was never turned over to us ever,” said Leonard Levine, the defense attorney of Dr. James Heaps. “We were shocked.”
A California appeals court on Monday found the mistake violated Heaps' Sixth Amendment rights and ordered the case to be retried. Lawyers for patients who accused Heaps say the decision to overturn his conviction has left them devastated, and legal experts say they are puzzled by the type of judicial error that transpired. Levine said he believes Heaps will be exonerated when retried.
“In my 30 years of trial and appeals work, excluding the defense from a jury question is unheard of,” said Dmitry Gorin, a former prosecutor and criminal defense specialist.
Attorneys for former patients criticize outcome
Courtney Thom, who represents more than 200 of Heaps’ former patients, said there is no question that jury note should have been shared with attorneys, but said the defense “exploited” the error to overturn Heaps’ conviction.
“When that happens, a common defense tactic is they delay, delay, delay, the second trial,” Thom said. “What does this say to survivors of sexual abuse? Who wants to come forward with their abuse if this is their path to justice?”
Thom’s firm won more than $240 million for Heaps’ accusers in a settlement with the University of California system. UCLA patients said Heaps groped them, made suggestive comments or conducted unnecessarily invasive exams. Overall, the university has paid nearly $700 million to settle lawsuits.
The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office said it plans to retry Heaps as soon as possible. Once that happens, his defense attorney Levine said he will ask that his client be released on bond just as he was before the first trial.
Foreperson had concerns about alternate juror
Heaps' trial spanned more than two months in 2022 and included testimony from several of his former patients. He was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of patients during his 35-year career. He pleaded not guilty to 21 felony counts in the sexual assaults of seven women between 2009 and 2018.
An hour after a juror was replaced by an alternate, juror number 15, during deliberations, the foreperson sent a note to the judge that read, “We 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.”
It also appeared that “his mind is already made up,” the note read.
Later on, when the judicial assistant spoke to the juror in Spanish, the juror said, “They think that I don’t understand English, but I do.” He insisted he could continue deliberating.
The next day, the foreperson told the judicial assistant that the note no longer needed to be addressed, according to court filings.
Heaps was convicted in October 2022 of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of two patients. The jury found him not guilty of seven of the 21 counts and was deadlocked on the remaining charges.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Carter, who oversaw the trial, told the appeals court that when he received an email about the jury note, he told his judicial assistant to ask the jury if they could continue to deliberate. He was informed that the jurors said yes.
The next day, Carter asked the judicial assistant about the note and was told the note had been “withdrawn.”
“I did not notify the parties nor did I inquire with the jury about the ‘Note to Judge,' " Carter said in a written declaration. He did not explain why.
Mistake violated defendant's constitutional rights
If the note had been simply disclosed in court, Heaps’ defense attorneys would have had the opportunity to question whether that juror was qualified to serve or call for a mistrial, said Robert Little, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in appellate law.
Usually any potential juror who did not speak adequate English is dismissed during the jury selection process, Little said.
“Mistakes are made in courtrooms and during trials every day,” Little said. “The question in any given appeal ... is whether that particular error was harmless, or was it prejudicial.”
The three-judge panel found “the trial court’s handling of the note deprived defendant of his constitutional right to counsel at a critical stage of his trial.”
Another attorney for 200 former patients in the case, John Manly, said in a statement the overturning of the conviction “sends a message that victims, especially women and children, do not matter.”
“These brave survivors suffered through a four-year ordeal of prosecution and trial resulting in an 11-year prison sentence for this monster,” Manly said. “Now they are being told that they must start over.”
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Watson reported from San Diego.
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