CORCORAN GUARDS LOSE ONE MOTION, ANOTHER FOLLOWS

Corcoran State Prison guards accused of staging inmate fights for sport
lost one motion to have their case dismissed Monday, but a judge delayed a
decision on a second motion.

U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii, following a hearing that spread over
nearly four hours, denied a motion by defense lawyers to drop the charges
because the indictment against the guards is "vague."

But Ishii kept alive and set further arguments Jan. 10 on a motion to
dismiss the charges over allegations that government prosecutors used
privileged testimony given by the guards in a state hearing as part of the
evidence used to bring the federal indictment.

Lawyer Mark W. Coleman, who represents Lt. Douglas Martin, one of the
accused guards, said he believes that investigators may have used testimony
taken from guards when they were compelled to testify in a state hearing
into the death of inmate Preston Tate.

Tate, in a fight with other inmates in a prison exercise yard, was fatally
shot April 2, 1994.

Martin and Sgt. John Vaughn and officers Jerry Arvizu and Christopher
Bethea, who allegedly fired the fatal shot, are charged in the incident
leading to Tate's death.

Four other guards are charged in connection with another inmate fight Feb.
23, 1994. They are Sgt. Truman Jennings and officers Michael Gipson,
Timothy Dickerson and Raul Tavarez. Coleman disputed affidavits filed by
prosecutors and FBI investigators saying they did not need the guards'
immunized statements to bring charges in the federal case.

"If they didn't need the immunized statement why did they circulate Lt.
Martin's consent form to allow his statement to be used before the grand
jury?" Coleman asked.

However, Mark Blumberg, a lawyer with the Department of Justice's civil
rights division in Washington, said statements made by the guards outside
the hearings in which they were forced to testify "covered every relevant
fact" made by them in the compelled testimony.

Blumberg, who was representing Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jonathan B. Conklin
and Carl M. Faller in the hearing, told Ishii that "simply put, there is an
independent source for that information "

Ishii ordered that a complete transcript of the grand jury investigation of
the case be filed under seal so he can review it and determine if the
compelled testimony was used in the prosecution.

Ishii stood firm on the trial date next year. "So the record is clear, I
anticipate this to start March 14," he emphasized.

The trial is expected to last three months.