SANTA ANA (CNS) – Opening statements are set for Wednesday in the trial of an Orange County Superior Court judge accused of fatally shooting his wife during an argument at their home in Anaheim Hills.
Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, is charged with murder with sentencing enhancements for discharge of a gun causing death and the personal use of a gun. He is accused of killing his wife, Sheryl, on Aug. 3, 2023. A jury was seated for the trial on Tuesday.
Los Angeles Superior Court Eleanor J. Hunter, who is presiding over the trial in Santa Ana, told prospective jurors Tuesday that they must not let their emotions influence their decision in the case.
“You have to look at it in a very clinical way,” Hunter said.
She warned the jury that “we’re going to hear about guns” during the trial, adding that political opinions about the issue must be set aside.
“This is not the time or place for that debate,” Hunter said.
Hunter also acknowledged that the shooting “did receive some media attention. You are to disregard anything you might have heard in the news.”
Ferguson’s attorneys have said insisted the shooting was an accident.
Police were called to the judge’s home just after 8 p.m. in the 8500 block of East Canyon Vista Drive. When officers arrived they found 65-year-old Sheryl Ferguson had suffered a fatal gunshot wound and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The original prosecutor in the case, Chris Alex, said in court papers when charges were filed that Ferguson “pointed his finger at his wife in a manner mimicking a firearm,” prompting the victim to say something to the effect of “Why don’t you point a real gun at me?”
Ferguson “retrieved his pistol from his ankle holster and shot (his wife) center mass” in the chest, Alex alleged in the court papers.
Ferguson’s son called 911, as did the judge. When a dispatcher asked the judge if he shot his wife, he said he did not want to discuss that at the time and when asked again, he said she needed paramedics, according to Alex.
Minutes later, Alex alleged, Ferguson sent a text message to his court clerk and bailiff, saying, “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry.”
The clerk and bailiff assumed he was joking, Alex said.
When officers arrived, Ferguson “slurred words and smelled of alcohol,” and their body-worn cameras caught him saying, “… well, I guess I’m done for a while … oh my God … my son … my son… I’m sorry … I (expletive) up … Oh man, I can’t believe I did this,” according to Alex.
Seven hours after the shooting, investigators obtained a blood sample from Ferguson, which showed he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.06.
His son told police that his father is more “heated” when drinking and arguing with his wife, Alex said.
His son “reported that, a few years prior, (Sheryl Ferguson) reported to him that defendant had attempted suicide with a gun,” Alex said. The son also said Ferguson had previously discharged a gun while alone in a bathroom at the house.
The son did not witness the shooting and characterized it to officers as an accidental discharge, Alex said.
The Fergusons have two sons, Kevin and Phillip, both adults.
Jeffrey Ferguson, a native of Oakland, earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences and social ecology from UC Irvine in 1973. He earned his law degree in 1982 from Western State College of Law, beginning his legal career the following year in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, where he later became a senior prosecutor assigned to the Major Narcotics Enforcement Team. He was president of the North Orange County Bar Association from 2012-14. The Orange County Narcotics Officers Association named him prosecutor of the year four times.
He became a judge in 2015.
In 2017, he was admonished by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for comments he made on Facebook about a prosecutor who was campaigning to be a jurist and for maintaining “friends” status with three defense attorneys who had cases before him.
Sheryl Ferguson previously worked for the Santa Barbara and Orange County probation departments and later for the American Funds Service Company for almost 20 years prior to becoming a full-time mother.
At a hearing last June, Ferguson was ordered to stand trial for his wife’s killing. That hearing included testimony from three Anaheim police officers and a police detective who responded to the scene.
Officer Andrew Compton said Ferguson spontaneously said, “I just killed my wife,” after being taken that night to the Anaheim Police Department’s headquarters.
Two other officers, Brandon Lander and Joshua Juntilla, testified that Ferguson had told police, “Shoot me,” while he was outside the family’s home. Juntilla said he smelled an odor of alcohol emanating from Ferguson.
Ferguson was ordered in August 2023 not to consume alcohol, and to wear a GPS device and an alcohol monitoring device as a condition of being freed on $1 million bail.
Hunter subsequently doubled his $1 million bail last Sept. 24 after prosecutors argued that he had consumed alcohol that triggered his ankle monitor — in violation of the terms of his release — and he was taken into custody Sept. 24 in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.
Hunter said the defendant had been warned not to consume any alcohol and had agreed to that provision in connection with his release on $1 million bail, noting that someone “died at the hands of Mr. Ferguson” and that “alcohol was involved.”
Hunter noted that Ferguson had signed a declaration under the penalty of perjury that he had nothing to drink, but Hunter concluded that he was “not truthful to the court” about his alcohol consumption.
“I have not consumed alcohol for over a year, and I did not consume any alcohol on Aug. 28 and Aug. 29, 2024,” Ferguson wrote in court papers.
The judge warned Ferguson at the hearing last September that she was not going to accept a “ridiculous story” about his ankle-monitoring system being triggered by the use of cortizone anti-itch cream and hand sanitizer gel as the defense had argued.
Ferguson was subsequently released from a Los Angeles County jail last Oct. 25 on $2 million bond after spending about a month behind bars.
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