Ex-UCLA campus gynecologist’s conviction overturned; retrial ordered – NBC Los Angeles

A state appeals court docket panel on Monday reversed the conviction of a former UCLA campus gynecologist on intercourse associated fees involving two girls and has been awaiting a retrial on comparable fees involving different sufferers.

The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Courtroom of Attraction ordered the case in opposition to James Mason Heaps, now 69, to be despatched again for retrial.

In a 31-page ruling, the appellate court docket panel famous that Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Decide Michael Carter despatched his judicial assistant into the jury room twice to talk to the jury in regards to the foreperson’s observe describing the jurors’ collective concern that one of many jurors didn’t communicate English sufficiently to deliberate and had already made up his thoughts, and that the decide didn’t inquire of the jury or inform the attorneys in regards to the observe’s existence.

The appellate court docket justices discovered that the observe raised a query of whether or not the juror had a ample command of English to carry out his duties and that it’s “undisputed, together with by the trial decide, that the court docket didn’t inform counsel of the observe and counsel had no alternative to counsel inquiries to the decide” or to be heard as as to if the juror was certified to stay on the panel.

“We acknowledge the burden on the trial court docket and regrettably, on the witnesses, in requiring retrial of a case involving a number of victims and delving into the conduct of intimate medical examinations. The significance of the constitutional proper to counsel at important junctures in a felony trial provides us no different selection,” performing Presiding Justice Helen I. Bendix wrote on behalf of the panel, with Affiliate Justices Gregory J. Weingart and Michelle C. Kim concurring.

Lawyer John Manly, who represented greater than 200 former sufferers of Heaps in a lawsuit that resulted in a settlement with UCLA, mentioned in a press release that the reversal of Heaps’ conviction is “an indictment of California’s felony justice system, which permits criminals to threaten public security and prey upon essentially the most weak.”

“… These courageous survivors suffered by way of a four-year ordeal of prosecution and trial leading to an 11-year jail sentence for this monster,” Manly added. “Now they’re being informed that they have to begin over … Our felony justice system wants reforms that put victims first.”

Heaps is behind bars at California’s Correctional Coaching Facility in Soledad, in keeping with state jail data.

He was convicted in October 2022 of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of an unconscious individual.

Jurors acquitted Heaps of fees involving two different sufferers, and deadlocked on the opposite 9 counts that contain 4 alleged victims, together with one of many girls named in a rely on which he was convicted.

Simply earlier than imposing the state jail sentence in April 2023, the decide famous that he had acquired at the very least 75 character letters on the defendant’s behalf, and mentioned that Heaps was “by all accounts a world-renowned gynecologist specializing in oncology.” He mentioned the letters despatched on behalf of Heaps have been crammed with tales about him saving the lives of his sufferers.

“However this status additionally serves as an aggravating issue as a result of it brought on the victims on this case to entrust their our bodies and lives to him,” the decide mentioned. “It was due to this status that he was capable of reap the benefits of the weak place that these victims have been in.”

The decide subsequently rejected the protection’s bid to launch Heaps on bail whereas he appealed his conviction.

Heaps was indicted in Could 2021 on fees involving the seven feminine sufferers. He surrendered his medical license in March 2023.

Heaps — who was ordered in 2019 to “stop and desist from the observe of medication as a situation of bail” after he was first charged that 12 months — served as a gynecologist/oncologist, affiliated with UCLA, for practically 35 years. At varied occasions, he noticed sufferers on the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Heart and at his workplace at 100 Medical Plaza.

At one time, he was reportedly the highest-paid doctor within the UC system and had handled about 6,000 sufferers, attorneys mentioned.

Greater than 500 lawsuits have been filed in opposition to Heaps and UCLA, accusing the varsity of failing to guard sufferers after changing into conscious of the misconduct.

In Could 2022, attorneys for 312 former sufferers of Heaps introduced a $374 million settlement of abuse lawsuits in opposition to the College of California.

The settlement got here on high of a $243.6 million decision of lawsuits involving about 200 sufferers introduced in February 2022, and a $73 million settlement of federal lawsuits beforehand reached involving roughly 5,500 plaintiffs.

The lawsuits alleged that UCLA actively and intentionally hid Heaps’ sexual abuse of sufferers. UCLA continued to permit Heaps to have unfettered sexual entry to feminine sufferers — a lot of whom have been most cancers sufferers — on the college, plaintiffs’ attorneys alleged within the lawsuits.

UCLA issued a press release in 2022 saying, “This settlement, mixed with earlier settlements involving different plaintiffs, resolves the overwhelming majority of the claims alleging sexual misconduct by James Heaps, a former UCLA Well being doctor.

“The conduct alleged to have been dedicated by Heaps is reprehensible and opposite to our values. We’re grateful to all those that got here ahead, and hope this settlement is one step towards offering some degree of therapeutic for the plaintiffs concerned.

“We’re devoted to offering the best high quality care that respects the dignity of each affected person. We’re taking all needed steps to make sure our sufferers’ well-being as a way to preserve the general public’s confidence and belief,” the assertion continued.