An Orange County Superior Court judge was sentenced Wednesday to 35 years to life in prison for fatally shooting his wife during a prolonged argument at their Anaheim Hills home.
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Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was convicted in an April retrial of second-degree murder for killing 65-year-old Sheryl Ferguson on Aug. 3, 2023. Jurors also found true a sentence-enhancing gun allegation.
A previous jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of a second-degree murder conviction, prompting the retrial.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter -- who was brought in to oversee the case because of Ferguson's position on the Orange County bench -- denied a defense motion for a new trial on Wednesday before handing down the prison sentence. Defense attorneys Frances Prizzia and Cameron Talley had argued for a new trial, contending he received ineffective assistance of counsel based on the judge rushing to hold a retrial in just under a month, leaving them unprepared.
Talley said he had two other cases ready for trial besides Ferguson's. One ended in a plea deal, but he argued he was prepared to try the other until Orange County Superior Court Judge Terri Flynn-Peister barred him from doing so, saying he could not answer ready on two cases.
Talley called it a "strange" ruling that left him unprepared for the Ferguson retrial. Hunter refused to grant Talley a continuance despite his claims he didn't have a medical expert available to testify about the defendant's bum shoulder, which he argued led to an accidental shooting. He also did not have an expert available on the gunfire and had not lined up a "second chair" attorney to assist him.
Talley said he even lacked a legal pad notebook.
"I could only respond to what I knew at the time," Hunter said of Talley's availability for a retrial regarding the two other cases.
"I only had 28 days from the first trial to the second trial," Talley said.
Talley eventually secured the two experts he needed, but only midway through the trial, with a medical exam on Ferguson's shoulder conducted in the attorney's office the night before testimony.
There was also sparring between the defense attorneys and Hunter over whether they had all the transcripts from the first trial.
"We did not have enough time to communicate," Prizzia said of her signing on to help Talley on the eve of the retrial.
"I did not have police reports until after the first witness testified," Prizzia said.
Hunter, however, praised the defense attorneys and the case they presented for their client, but she said there were too many damning facts against the defendant.
"I think you were terrific in the first trial and even better in the second one," Hunter told Talley. She also praised Prizzia's opening statement in the retrial.
Hunter said a second chair in a trial is a "luxury, not a right."
The judge also noted that the defense attorneys had years to line up medical experts on the shoulder injury and on the shooting. Also, she said, Ferguson never claimed during police questioning the night of the fatal shooting that it was an accident, Hunter said.
Hunter noted that during questioning Ferguson said the jury should "convict my ass," adding that as a judge and former prosecutor he understood his legal liability in the shooting.
She recounted how he went drinking at lunch the day of the shooting while on the job and returned home to drink some more. This was all a violation of his concealed carry permit, which he knew, she said.
"At the end of the day the facts are the facts in this case," Hunter said.
"In this case, 23 jurors said the defendant was guilty -- only one said he was guilty of involuntary manslaughter," Hunter said.
Prizzia argued that her client should get a new trial because Hunter denied a delay in the retrial so an expert witness, forensic psychologist Lisa Grajewski, could be available to testify as she did in the first trial on how trauma could have affected the defendant's son's recollection of what happened.
A mistrial in the first trial was declared March 10. Opening statements in the next trial were held April 14.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer praised Hunter for fast- tracking a retrial within a month.
Hunter criticized Ferguson multiple times in court for doing television news interviews following the mistrial.
Talley defended his client, saying Ferguson just wanted the public to know he loved his wife.
The defendant's son, Phillip Ferguson, was "balling his eyes out" after the retrial verdict. Phillip Ferguson was there for the shooting and a key witness in the trials.
Phillip Ferguson struggled through his testimony in the retrial, as he did in the first trial. That opened up a chance for prosecutors to admit more of the video of police questioning the son as evidence in the retrial.
Jeffrey Ferguson claimed the shooting was accidental, insisting the gun discharged when he fumbled while trying to set the weapon on a coffee table. He said his shoulder, which is missing three of four tendons, gave out while he was handling the weapon and it discharged.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Seton Hunt, who has since left the office for another job as a prosecutor in another county, called the judge's story "ludicrous," noting that the Glock handgun that Ferguson carried in an ankle holster required five pounds of pressure on the trigger to discharge, and was specifically designed not to fire when dropped.
Hunt returned to Orange County for the sentencing hearing Wednesday.
Ferguson, who conceded having an alcohol problem, was drinking throughout the day and began arguing with his wife when he got home. Sheryl Ferguson became angry when she realized the judge's son from a previous marriage, Kevin, had not sent a thank you note as promised for money the couple gave him for child care for his daughter.
Her anger was exacerbated by the knowledge that Ferguson was not Kevin's biological father -- a fact that only publicly emerged during the retrial. The family learned of it in 2019.
The argument continued when the couple went out to dinner with their son Phillip. The argument escalated when the judge pointed at his wife with a gun-like gesture, prompting her to angrily walk out of the restaurant. She eventually returned, but the argument continued when the family returned home and continued their nightly ritual of watching "Breaking Bad."
Prosecutors said that at one point during the argument, Sheryl Ferguson said something to the extent of "Why don't you point a real gun at me?" That prompted the judge to remove his Glock from his ankle holster and shoot her, prosecutors said.
The judge disputed that theory, saying he thought his wife said "get that gun away from me," and he was trying to comply by removing it from the holster and setting it on a coffee table, but he fumbled it, causing it to discharge.
Talley argued that forensic evidence backed the judge's version of events, arguing that the bullet wound from the single gunshot indicated the angle of the weapon was pointing upward, which would be consistent with Ferguson's account of the accidental shooting.
Talley also argued that the location where the bullet cartridge landed also proves the point, since it would have been ejected further away instead of at the base of the coffee table if it had been fired directly at the victim, as the prosecution theorized.
"It landed where it landed if he's telling the truth," Talley said.
Talley noted that the judge posted a photo of his wife on his Facebook page before the shooting. And the two had made plans to buy a home in Texas to be closer to their son, who was attending his final semester at Southern Methodist University. He also advised his wife to buy some lottery tickets that morning.
Ferguson sent a note to his courtroom bailiff and clerk outside the house after the shooting, 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."
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