Reduction in $1-Million Bail for Peyer Denied

Superior Court Judge Richard Huffman on Tuesday refused to lower the $1-million bail for Craig Peyer, the California Highway Patrol officer charged with murder, but Huffman criticized the judge who presided at a January bail review hearing for Peyer.

Huffman dismissed a defense contention that Municipal Judge Herbert Exarhos abused his discretion when he doubled Peyer’s bail to $1 million on Jan. 27. However, Huffman criticized Exarhos for announcing in court that he “presumed” that Peyer was guilty of charges that he strangled San Diego State University student Cara Evelyn Knott, 20, on Dec. 27.

“It seems to me entirely inappropriate for a magistrate to presume guilt,” said Huffman, who added that Exarhos based this presumption of guilt on an arrest warrant that was supported by a 50-page declaration “that was not tested in the adversary process.” All evidence in the case, including the declaration, has been ordered sealed.

Despite the criticism of Exarhos, Huffman said that the Municipal Court judge followed the law, which allows a judge wide discretion in bail proceedings, when he doubled Peyer’s bail. State law says that a judge must take into consideration the seriousness of the charge, the defendant’s prior record and the likelihood that the accused will fail to appear if freed on bail. The California Victims Bill of Rights also requires a judge to consider the public safety when considering bail for an accused.

Huffman said that Exarhos erred when he allowed an attorney for Knott’s family to argue against setting bail for Peyer at the Jan. 27 hearing. He referred to the unusual appearance by Judith Rowland, director of legal services for the California Center on Victimology. Attorneys for both sides said it was the first time they had heard of a judge allowing a private attorney not affiliated with the prosecution or defense to argue as a third party in a criminal hearing.

Huffman said that he sympathized with Knott’s family but said that Rowland had no business acting as a third-party advocate at the hearing.

“In California, the people are represented by the district attorney. . . . (Exarhos) erred in allowing attorney Rowland to appear and make legal arguments, but any error in allowing attorney Rowland to appear was harmless,” Huffman said.

Rowland, like Huffman, is a former prosecutor with the San Diego County district attorney’s office.

Huffman’s comments came at an early morning hearing, which was scheduled so defense attorney Robert Grimes could argue for a lowering of Peyer’s bail to $300,000. Grimes argued that Exarhos had abused his authority by doubling the bail to $1 million, after ordering Peyer held on $500,000 bail a week earlier.

The defense attorney said Exarhos should not have relied on the 50-page declaration submitted by homicide investigators because it was loaded with “clearly inadmissible and inappropriate references” to Peyer and the investigation. He attacked it as an “extraordinary and unprecedented document . . . full of inflammatory things like pictures of the victim.” Exarhos doubled Peyer’s bail at the Jan. 27 hearing after Deputy Dist. Atty. Joseph Van Orshoven presented what he called new evidence to Exarhos and Grimes in the judge’s chambers. Grimes had argued for a reduction to $300,000, but Exarhos called the new evidence “substantial” and granted a prosecution request to double the bail to $1 million.

On Monday, Grimes called the new evidence “paltry” and said that Exarhos was instead influenced by public reaction to Knott’s killing. If the suspect in Knott’s slaying “had been anybody else, he would’ve received about $250,000 bail,” Grimes argued.

“It’s our feeling that a police officer is entitled to no more benefit under the law, but certainly no less. The unusual amount of attention focused on this case has resulted in Officer Peyer being treated more harshly,” said Grimes.

He said that $1 million is the highest bail ever set in a non-capital case in San Diego County, and compared that to the $100,000 bail set for CHP Officer George Michael Gwaltney, who was convicted of a civil rights homicide in 1984. Gwaltney was found guilty of violating the civil rights of a young woman whom he stopped and killed in the desert near Barstow.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Thomas McArdle, who argued for the prosecution, said that Peyer might jump bail and asked Huffman to keep the bail at $1 million. McArdle denied that the new evidence presented Jan. 21 was paltry and referred to evidence obtained from “people at the gas station.”

Knott was last seen alive when she stopped at a gas station at Via Rancho Parkway and Interstate 15. Her fully clothed body was found nearly 12 hours later, on Dec. 28, in a creekbed beneath a bridge near an isolated Interstate 15 off-ramp.

“What the evidence does is increase (Peyer’s) risk of flight,” said McArdle. “ . . . There’s nothing before the court to indicate that the petitioner (Peyer) is innocent. . . . Mr. Peyer can read just as well as we can. He can see where the evidence is leading. . . . You have to have a very high bail in this case.”

In addition to other criticisms of Exarhos, Huffman said that he added confusion to the Jan. 21 hearing by not articulating his decision well. Reading from a transcript of the hearing, Huffman said that Exarhos rejected Rowland’s argument that Peyer would pose a threat to public safety if he were freed on bail.

But in announcing his decision to double the bail, Exarhos expressed his concern over “community safety” if Peyer’s bail was not increased.

After the hearing, Presiding Municipal Court Judge H. Ronald Domnitz agreed to postpone Peyer’s preliminary hearing, which had been scheduled for next week, until April 20. Municipal Judge Frederic L. Link was assigned to preside at the hearing.