An appeals court overturned the conviction of a disgraced former UCLA gynecologist serving 11 years in prison for sexually abusing patients, after determining the trial judge failed to disclose that jurors had concerns that one of their own barely spoke English.
James Heaps, 69, will be retried on the charges involving the two patients he was convicted of abusing in 2022, a three-judge panel of the California 2nd District Court of Appeal ordered on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reported.
John Manly, who represented more than 200 former Heaps patients in a lawsuit that resulted in a $243.6 million settlement, said the decision to toss the conviction is “an indictment of California’s criminal justice system which allows criminals to threaten public safety and prey upon the most vulnerable.’’
“These brave survivors suffered through a four-year ordeal of prosecution and trial resulting in an 11-year prison sentence for this monster. Now they are being told that they must start over. And why?” the attorney raged.
“Because California has produced laws, policies and some prosecutors and judges who defend the rights of criminals and throw victims to the wolves.”
During the jury deliberations at the end of the two-month trial, LA County Superior Court Judge Michael Carter received a note by the foreperson that said there was a “collective concern” that juror No. 15 “did not speak English sufficiently to deliberate and had already made up his mind,” the panel ruled.
Juror No. 15 was originally assigned as an alternative, but replaced juror No. 8. The judge received the note just an hour later.
“We have observed that the language barrier with Juror [No.] 15 is preventing us from properly deliberating,” the note read. “Juror [No.] 15 was not able to understand calls to vote guilty or not guilty, and expressed to us that his limited English interfered with his understanding of the testimony.”
Once-renowned cancer specialist Heaps was ultimately convicted of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration with two patients. He was acquitted of abusing two other patients and no decision was reached on charges involving four more patients.
Heaps was sentenced to 11 years behind bars in 2023, and was ordered to register as a sex offender upon his release.
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However, his defense attorney never learned about the judge’s note ahead of the verdict.
The Court of Appeal found “the trial court’s handling of the note deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to counsel at a critical stage of his trial.”
They determined to throw out the conviction and Heaps will have the opportunity for a new trial.
UCLA ultimately shelled out nearly $700 million in total to over 300 of Heaps’s victims.
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