'Convict me': Heart-wrenching opening in trial of O.C. judge who fatally shot his wife
Sitting outside his Anaheim Hills home with his hands cuffed behind his back, Jeffrey Ferguson muttered and raged and sobbed. He bragged of past glories, of putting outlaws behind bars, and lamented that his son would now hate him forever.
It was Aug. 3, 2023, and the 72-year-old Ferguson had just shot his wife after an evening of heavy drinking. They had been in the family room, watching the final season of "Breaking Bad," and he had fired a single round from his Glock .40-caliber handgun in full view of their 22-year-old son, Phillip. The bullet had entered 65-year-old Sheryl Ferguson's midsection, exited high on her back, passed through the chair behind her and lodged in the wall.
Now, Ferguson sat on a short ledge outside while paramedics struggled — and failed — to save her life. Officers emptied his pockets, and one of them asked: "What's your occupation, sir?"
There was a long pause, and Ferguson sighed before answering.
"I'm a Superior Court judge."
The exchange, captured on the officer's body camera, was played for jurors this week in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, where Ferguson, now 74, is standing trial on a charge of murder. His defense attorneys have not disputed that Ferguson shot and killed his wife, but contend it was accidental.
Ferguson, who was a longtime prosecutor before he was a judge, had a concealed-carry permit and "vast experience" with firearms, Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Seton Hunt told jurors in his opening statement Wednesday. Ferguson kept his Glock loaded in a velcro ankle holster and wore it everywhere "unless he was showering or sleeping," Hunt said.
At the time of the shooting, he said, Ferguson had a blood-alcohol level of .17, more than twice the legal driving limit, after drinking beer, rum and margaritas in the preceding hours.
"I killed her. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, convict my ass. I did it," Ferguson said in a police interview room, in a video the prosecutor showed jurors. "I owe it to my son. ... Convict me. ... Send me on my way."
Phillip Ferguson, the son who witnessed the shooting, testified Wednesday that he had been attending Southern Methodist University in 2023, but was home with his parents in Anaheim Hills that summer.
He said that he knew his parents to argue, and sometimes get in shouting matches when his father drank, but that he didn't recall them fighting much that summer. Nor, he said, had he ever witnessed his father commit violence against her before.
But that night, Phillip Ferguson testified, his parents were arguing heatedly about money, a quarrel that started at home and continued over dinner at El Cholo restaurant, where his father pointed his index finger at her in imitation of a gun.
The argument flared again when they all got home and watched "Breaking Bad" in the family room, and at one point he heard his mother say, "Why don't you point a real gun at me?"
Phillip Ferguson said he turned and saw his father extend a gun and shoot his mom.
"I hopped or climbed over the edge of the couch and grabbed my father's wrist to pin it to the ground," he testified. "As I was jumping over the couch, I heard her say, 'He shot me.'"
The son called 911 and performed chest compressions on his mother until paramedics arrived. He said that he has stayed with his father now and then since the shooting and that they have mended their relationship.
He said that prior to the shooting, his father would take him to the firing range and instruct him in gun safety. He recalled his father's lessons: "Always point the weapon in a safe direction. Never point your firearm at something that you do not intend to destroy. And never put your finger on the trigger unless you intend to use the weapon."
Ferguson's defense attorneys waived their right to an opening statement, and it remains to be seen how they will make the case that the shooting was accidental. Doing so may require the defendant to testify. That would be risky, in part because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter, who is presiding over the case because Orange County judges have recused themselves, has warned Ferguson that he may be cross-examined about his prior dealings with her.
Last year, Hunter ruled that Ferguson had consumed alcohol while awaiting trial — a violation of his bail conditions — and had then lied about it. She derided his claim that his use of cortisol cream, not alcohol, had activated his ankle monitor, and she doubled his bail to $2 million.
"You lied during a prior hearing when you said it was cortisol that set your bracelet off," the judge told him at a pretrial hearing this week. It was "revelant" and "ripe for cross-examination," the judge said.
Defense attorney Cameron Talley said such questioning would be "so incredibly prejudicial it would require a mistrial."
Read more: He was Leslie Van Houten's 'hippie lawyer.' Then, he defied Manson
At the same hearing, Talley revealed that Ferguson still had the chair with the bullet hole and kept it in his living room, a fact that seemed to startle the judge.
"In his living room, still?" she asked.
"Yes, your honor," Talley said.
Ferguson, who had been presiding over a courtroom in Fullerton before his arrest, continues to be paid his annual salary of more than $220,000 plus benefits, but is no longer hearing cases.
In the minutes after the shooting, as reflected on video from the police officer's body camera, Ferguson sat outside his home on Canyon Vista Drive, sobbing, chastising himself, and asking police repeatedly whether his wife was dead.
"I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be sitting here in front of my house in handcuffs," he said.
An officer asked how long he had been a judge.
"Nine years," Ferguson said.
And before that?
"I was a deputy district attorney for 32 motherf— years," the judge said. He bragged about prosecuting members of the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang; and of the Vagos motorcycle gang.
"And here I am now, like them, after all this," he said. "My son is gonna hate me. ... My son."
More than half an hour after the shooting, an officer informed Ferguson that his wife was dead. Ferguson said he wanted his son to punch him in the face.
"I deserve it. ... What is he gonna do now?" he said.
Before he was led to the squad car, Ferguson had another thought for police.
"You guys were a little late getting here, by the way," he said. "Not that that's your fault."
Testimony is expected to continue Monday.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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