Haun’s Lawyer Seeks Gag Order in Dally Case

VENTURA — The attorney for murder suspect Diana Haun sought a gag order Wednesday forbidding prosecutors, investigators and police from discussing the case with reporters.

Haun, a 35-year-old deli clerk from Port Hueneme, was arrested Friday on a charge of murder in the slaying of homemaker and mother of two Sherri Dally.

The skeletal body of Dally, 35, of Ventura, was found bludgeoned and stabbed repeatedly in a ravine north of Ventura on June 1. She was last seen May 6.

Although Haun has already been charged in a criminal complaint, the district attorney’s office is pursuing an indictment against her before a Ventura County grand jury to avoid a preliminary hearing in the case.

The grand jury has already questioned several people, including Michael Dally, the victim’s husband and Haun’s longtime lover.

Deputy Public Defender Neil Quinn said he wants a judge to order prosecutors to avoid talking publicly about the case, and to have them compel police investigators to keep quiet about it, too.

Quinn’s motion also asks the court to order Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury not to talk to the press about the case. It accuses him of leaking sealed court documents to The Times--an allegation that prosecutors described as having no basis in fact.

The defense motion also asks for a court order requiring Bradbury to conduct an internal investigation into alleged press leaks that Quinn charges have been made by Bradbury’s office.

“It appears probable that Michael D. Bradbury released, or caused to be released, a sealed search warrant affidavit to the Los Angeles Times,” says the motion, signed by Quinn and his co-counsel, Deputy Public Defender Susan Olson.

“This was a breach, not only of the ethical duties shared by all lawyers not to compromise a case by making extrajudicial statements, but of the order of the court sealing the affidavit,” the motion says.

Bradbury could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

But Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Kevin J. McGee said: “Those allegations are the product of nothing more than wild imagination and have no basis in fact. We take seriously our obligation to protect the rights of the accused to a fair trial, and that’s why we have not been commenting on the case despite repeated media inquiries.”

McGee declined further comment.

Municipal Judge John Smiley is scheduled to review the defense motion today or Friday. He may transfer the matter to another judge, or to the presiding judge of Superior Court, Robert C. Bradley.

The public defender’s office served subpoenas Tuesday on Times staff writer Daryl Kelley and William Overend, city editor of The Times’ Ventura County Edition, ordering them to appear as witnesses in the matter.

Kelley and Overend declined to comment Wednesday.

Quinn also filed a motion Wednesday afternoon asking for a court order ensuring that the grand jury investigation is conducted properly and that grand jury members are fully screened for bias that they may have picked up from pretrial publicity on Dally’s death and Haun’s arrest.

The motion asks that the judge overseeing the investigation instruct the jurors about their duties and the principles of the law. And it asks that the court require that the court reporter keep a full record of the investigation, allowing no “off the record” conferences.