The three surviving siblings of National Guard Armory bludgeoning victim JoAnn Crystal Harris, after fighting for more than a year with their since-dismissed attorneys to gain a perception of monetary justice from the state of California, won a long-sought objective this morning when a trial date was set in their slow-moving civil case.
However, just when Gerald Bennett, Suzette Bennett and Deborah Bennett were about to celebrate the most crucial advance yet — a tentative date two weeks from today, Monday, Nov. 21 — a potential impediment, a bombshell, dropped into their path.
At issue is whether Ms. Harris’s late mother, Martha Lou Harris, seriously ill and hospitalized a year ago last summer, agreed at that time to a $400,000 compensation offer from the state while in her hospital bed. Mrs. Harris’s son, Mr. Bennett, has declared vociferously numerous times his mother was in no condition to embrace an offer, much less the smallest of several figures that had been bandied about.
Dep. Atty. Gen. David Adida, prosecuting the case for the state, told the newspaper this afternoon that he will seek to depose Martha Lou Harris’s physician.
The doctor’s testimony could delay or even derail the case, according to court sources.
It is the Bennett-Harris family’s contention that Mr. Ansman’s intentions were known weeks before her murder, and no action was taken to ward off the homicide.
Said Mr. Adida:
“If the deposition reveals that Ms. Martha Harris was in fact of sound mind and body on Oct. 4, 2010, and that she did agree to settle her case for the sum of $400,000, then the state will ask Judge (Kevin) Brazile to postpone the Harris trial until the state's breach of contract action against Ms. Harris' s heirs is resolved.”
When the Family Was Sued
(On Oct. 12, the state sued the Bennett siblings for breach of contract, charging that the mother had accepted the offer but the siblings denied she had.)
Mr. Adida said that “there would be no need at all to conduct a trial if the evidence shows that there is no truth to Mr. Bennett's accusation” against Robert McNeill, a Downtown former attorney for the Bennett-Harris family.
Mr. Bennett, the prosecutor noted, has asserted that Mr. McNeill “took advantage of his (ailing) mother to force the settlement on her.”
The Bennett-Harris family sued the state on negligence grounds some months after Ms. Harris, 29 years old and pregnant, was bludgeoned to death by Sgt. Scott Ansman at the Culver City National Guard Armory on Friday, Aug. 24, 2007. It has been reported that Mr. Ansman’s murderous intentions were known by some fellow Guardsman, one in particular, who reported the accusations to the Culver City police three weeks before the crime.
Could Crime Have Been Averted?
The Bennett-Harris family maintains that no steps or insufficient ones were taken to avoid the homicide.
From the office of defense attorney Mark Geragos, Ben Meiselas, who was on the case this morning, said the deposition revelation “appears to be another delaying tactic.”
Mr. Meiselas said their office has not been notified by the Attorney General’s office.
“If there was a deposition at this point, and of an attending medical provider, there are issues there,” he said. “Some sort of notice would need to be given.
“It appears to be more delay tactics. It appears to be another example similar to the breach of contract the state filed against the Bennett-Harris family” for not accepting the $400,000 offer from the state Attorney General’s office. (Martha Lou Harris, 71 years old, died last August after a lengthy illness.)
“This is in line,” Mr. Meiselas said, “with those tactics to delay trial and delay justice from being served, and delay the family from having a hearing.
“It has been three years. The state has had ample opportunity to conduct depositions of multiple relevant individuals.
“Dozens of depositions were taken in this matter.”
Did Mr. Meiselas suspect a deposition was looming?
“In litigation,” he said, “you can expect anything. A good litigator always knows nothing should come as a surprise. You prepare for anything.
“I can tell you the plaintiffs are fully prepared to litigate and respond to any pre-trial filings by the state that may or may not be intended to delay the Bennetts from having their day in court.”
