Judge delays rulings on matters in murder trial pending decision on his status

An Orange County judge presiding over the case of a Costa Mesa man accused of two killings said Friday that he will not rule on contentious motions leading up to the trial until the state’s highest court decides whether he should stay on the case.

Lawyers defending Daniel Patrick Wozniak have been fighting to remove Superior Court Judge John Conley from the double-murder trial, and last week, public defender Scott Sanders petitioned the California Supreme Court to take up the issue.

During a hearing Friday, Sanders said he didn’t think it was appropriate for Conley to rule on any part of the case until the matter is resolved.

Sanders has argued that Conley should not be on the case because the judge has knowledge that could help spare Wozniak from the death penalty.

As part of wide-ranging accusations of misconduct by prosecutors, Sanders plans to file a motion to bar the death sentence partly because he believes law enforcement illegally used jailhouse informants to coax damaging information from defendants, including Wozniak.

Sanders has said he hopes to call Conley as a witness to help prove those allegations. The judge was a homicide prosecutor in Orange County from 1980 to 1982 and at times used informants.

Conley countered that the last time he used an informant was decades ago and that anything he knows would be irrelevant to Wozniak’s case.

A Los Angeles County judge has ruled that Conley could stay put, and a panel of appeals court judges denied Sanders’ request to overturn that decision.

Despite that, Conley said he will refrain from making any rulings on the Wozniak matter until the Supreme Court decides. But he asked Sanders and prosecutor Matt Murphy to prepare outlines of the issues at stake to keep the case moving.

The charges that Wozniak murdered two Orange Coast College students are almost 5 years old. He is accused of killing Sam Herr and his friend Juri “Julie” Kibuishi so he could access Herr’s bank account.

Before the case can go to trial, Conley — or another judge — must adjudicate several issues, including a subpoena from Sanders seeking information from the cable TV network MSNBC. Sanders has alleged that law enforcement colluded with producers of the show “Lockup,” which interviewed Wozniak behind bars.

Murphy has repeatedly dismissed Sanders’ accusations as delay tactics with no factual basis.

On Friday, Murphy pushed to schedule the case’s next hearing for May instead of June in case the Supreme Court makes a decision by then.

“Let’s be optimistic,” he said.