# One cop’s family’s long wait for justice…and still counting



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*10-8:*
*Life on the Line*
with Charles Remsberg 
*One cop's family's long wait for justice&#8230;and still counting*

By Chuck Remsberg 
Senior PoliceOne Contributor 
Sponsored by Blauer

How long should it take before a suspect who's in custody stands trial for murdering a police officer? 
Five years and counting - does that sound reasonable? More like a travesty of justice, in the eyes of San Jose, Calif., officers and the frustrated family of rookie Jeff Fontana who was gunned down with a fatal shot to the face on what appears to have been a vehicle stop in the early hours of Oct. 28, 2001.

Eleven days later, a 22-year-old fugitive with a long rap sheet was arrested and charged. Since then, he's been to court more than 100 times on motions and hearings before three different judges, been represented by four lawyers, has compiled 2,500 pages of transcripts. And still he has not faced the full consequences of his alleged responsibility for the ultimate homicide, the wanton slaying of a peace officer. 
This week, Jeff Fontana's parents, Tony and Sandy Fontana, met with prosecutor Lane Liroff for yet another update on the case. He told them he felt the case "is getting closer to trial," but Sandy emerged from the meeting feeling at least another 6 months of waiting lie ahead. "Every prediction I've given," Liroff admitted to PoliceOne, "has been way off." 
"I used to think we had a great judicial system," Sandy Fontana told PoliceOne. "Now I think it's a horrible system. Endless frustration - that's what it is, totally." 
Twenty-four-year-old Jeffrey Fontana, who'd wanted to be a cop since he was 8 or 10 years old and who said his academy graduation was the proudest day of his life, was two weeks into patrolling on his own for San Jose PD when he met his killer. "We will never really know what happened until the murderer speaks," says his mother. 
He was slain in a tiny cul-de-sac in a "bucolic" upscale neighborhood before dawn. A resident heard a gunshot and phoned 911. Jeff was found sprawled on his back on the pavement between his unit and a "nondescript" Hyundai, his flashlight nearby. He'd been shot through the right eye. His pistol was still snapped in his holster. "I only hope he died instantly," his mother says. 
It was easy to finger DeShawn Campbell as the suspect. The Hyundai and the gun used to kill Jeff belonged to Campbell's father. DeShawn's keys were in the ignition, and his fingerprints were in the car. He was on the lam from two felony warrants and has a criminal history that includes robbery and assaulting police officers. 
A young woman who was with Campbell and others shortly before the murder told investigators they'd been listening to a radio show that discussed how best to kill someone wearing soft body armor - by shooting them in the head. 
What may have brought Campbell to the neighborhood is publicly unclear. One report says the area had been plagued with a series of car break-ins. Sandy Fontana says she's heard rumors of a drug party, a fight, a threat to kill an adversary, a quick trip home to get a gun, and an angry return that was interrupted by Jeff's car stop. 
Whatever, an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip led to where Campbell was hiding out, and the police hauled him in. "He should have been in jail" on the charges that were pending against him when Jeff was killed, Sandy says. "But he'd convinced a judge that he should be released to help care for his child" he'd fathered by a girlfriend.

*"How must all this make other officers feel every day when they put on their gun and badge to go to work? If they don't get justice for one of their own, how must they feel?"*

After a preliminary hearing when evidence was ruled sufficient for Campbell to stand trial for Jeff's murder, Sandy says she and Tony were told by Prosecutor Liroff to expect the case to drag on for three or four years. "Now," she says, "it's five going to six." 
There have been so many hearings and promises of "imminent" trial that the Fontanas have stopped going to most of the proceedings in despair of anything substantive taking place beyond yet another defense motion and another inevitable postponement. 
For Campbell, a speedy trial is no priority. Since Jeff's murder, he has been found guilty of four felonies and has been sentenced to nearly 20 years. He's serving the time in county jail rather than prison to allow convenient access to his attorney in the Fontana case. 
Initially Campbell was assigned to public defenders. A major delay occurred after one of those lawyers also agreed to represent him in a civil wrongful death suit brought by the Fontanas as a backstop to the criminal proceedings. A judge ruled this a conflict of interest, and Campbell was assigned to private counsel, still paid for by the county. 
Some of the defense's delaying motions Sandy considers plainly "ridiculous." One, for instance, sought (unsuccessfully) to have the entire county prosecutor's office recused from the case because of defense dissatisfaction with Liroff. Another petitioned for delay (successfully) because the defense attorney broke a finger. "What can't a lawyer do with one finger broken?" Sandy asks. "Our feeling is that the defense is using any tactic for delaying this more and more." 
Right now, although the Fontanas were told the case would go to trial last December ['05], Campbell's lawyer, Ed Sousa, is waging a determined battle to have the defendant ruled mentally retarded so he would not be eligible for the death penalty. When a judge decreed last month that the prosecution as well as the defense could conduct testing, Sousa appealed to the state Supreme Court and got a stay that could last at least until the end of this year. 
It's like the shopworn defense strategy of stalling until witnesses die, disappear, forget or wear out - on steroids. 
Sousa, who has defended more than a dozen accused killers, has said that the trial could begin "tomorrow" if the state would back off of pursuing the death penalty. The Fontanas oppose this compromise. 
The long ordeal, Liroff told PoliceOne, "has been terrible. California cases always seem to move slower than in the rest of the country." But judges in the Fontana murder seem to have been particularly "unwilling to push the case.

The Full Article can be found at the PoliceOne site 
One family's long wait for justice...and still counting

http://www.policeone.com/


----------



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Dozens mark anniversary of officer's 
death with protest of trial delay

October 30, 2008

 ​DeShawn Campbell appears in court, charged with the shooting death of San Jose officer Jeffrey Fontana. This week, family members and friends marched on the anniversary of Fontana's death to protest the delays in the case. (AP Photo)
​
By Lisa Fernandez and Mark Gomez 
San Jose Mercury News

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Seven years ago Tuesday, San Jose police officer Jeffrey Fontana was gunned down in the line of duty. His accused killer still is awaiting trial.
About 50 family members and friends marched to the Hall of Justice in San Jose on the anniversary of Fontana's death to show their frustration and anger with the continual delays in the case.
Chanting "seven years is too long" and "justice delayed is justice denied," the group circled the Hedding Street building and demanded justice for Fontana, who was shot to death Oct. 28, 2001, during a pre-dawn patrol stop in Almaden Valley.
DeShawn Campbell, the man accused of shooting Fontana in the head and leaving him to die in a cul-de-sac off Almaden Expressway, was arrested less than two weeks after the officer's death. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Campbell, now 29, but the case has been held up in large part because defense attorneys say he is mentally retarded. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to execute mentally retarded criminals.
Fontana's family and friends have had enough.
"When I tell my friends and others that this case has never gone to trial, they just don't believe me," said Fontana's mother, Sandy, who was at the protest with her husband, Tony, and son Greg. "Take away the fact that he was my son. He was a police officer and killed in the line of duty. It's not like it's been three, four years. But seven years. We want a trial. Now we've become victims of the justice system."
The legal battle over Campbell's mental condition has been the key drag on the case. In August 2007, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge ruled that Campbell was not mentally retarded. Five months later, a state court of appeal ordered a new hearing after a former youth worker came forward to admit he had confused Campbell with another person while testifying about the defendant's mental abilities.
In July, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge issued a ruling that effectively reopened the question of whether Campbell is mentally retarded. The reopened hearing to determine Campbell's mental abilities ended Friday. Lawyers expect the issue to be decided by the end of the year.
"We believe we are going to win on that issue and hope to go to trial soon," prosecutor Lane Liroff said.
But there have been other complications too. A public defender was removed in December 2003 for a conflict of interest. A new defense team recently argued to have Deputy District Attorney Liroff disqualified from prosecuting the case because of Liroff's campaign to become a judge. A Superior Court judge rejected that argument and defense attorney Edward Sousa's call for recusing the entire district attorney's office from the case.
It's these procedural issues that are toying with the Fontana family's emotions.
"Without a trial, it's just more difficult all the time," Sandy Fontana said. "We can't move forward. This is not the normal life cycle."
Sandy Fontana, however, was heartened by the size of the crowd Tuesday morning. She only expected a handful of people, but with invitations sent out on Facebook, in e-mail and in phone calls, there were dozens of people there to show their support for her. The crowd included criminal justice students and a professor at Fontana's alma mater, San Jose State University, family friends and police officers. They all were wearing light blue T-shirts that said "Justice for Jeff" over a San Jose police badge.
As they have done each year since Fontana's death, family and friends were also scheduled to participate in a candlelight vigil Tuesday night at Fontana Park.








Wire Service


----------

