{"id":41387,"date":"2025-04-23T04:26:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41387"},"modified":"2025-04-23T04:26:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:26:47","slug":"southern-california-judge-found-guilty-of-fatally-shooting-wife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=41387","title":{"rendered":"Southern California judge found guilty of fatally shooting wife"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">LOS ANGELES \u2014 A California jury on Tuesday convicted a judge of fatally shooting his wife after an argument at their Anaheim Hills home in 2023, the district attorney\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson was convicted of second-degree murder around six weeks&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/mistrial-declared-murder-trial-california-judge-accused-killing-wife-rcna195746\">after an earlier jury deadlocked 11-1<\/a>&nbsp;in favor of a guilty verdict, leading to a mistrial. The case was retried, resulting in Tuesday\u2019s conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Ferguson, 72, shot his wife, Sheryl, on Aug. 3, 2023, but&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/california-judge-facing-re-trial-wifes-murder-says-death-was-accidenta-rcna196393\">said the shooting was accidental<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Prosecutors said he shot her in the chest with a .40-caliber Glock handgun while he was drunk during an argument over money. He then texted his court bailiff that &#8220;I just lost it. I just shot my wife,&#8221; prosecutors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said the murder case was emotional because he has known Ferguson and his wife for three decades and their adult son since he was a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cJeff Ferguson took the life of Sheryl. He took her strength, he took her body, he took her will to live and crushed it,\u201d Spitzer said after the guilty verdict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">During the trial, it was revealed that Ferguson drank alcohol at lunch and then returned to hear cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Spitzer said his office will review cases that Ferguson adjudicated while he may have been under the influence of alcohol or in which something inappropriate may have occurred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat system is being set up as we speak,\u201d Spitzer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Ferguson has been a superior court judge since 2015, and before that he was an Orange County deputy district attorney for more than 30 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Ferguson\u2019s attorney, Cameron J. Talley, said they respect the jury\u2019s decision but disagreed with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe jury made its statement; we respect that,\u201d Talley said. \u201cAt the same time, we still believe in Jeff Ferguson. We believe that he is not guilty, and there will be an appeal in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Ferguson faces up to life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for June 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/southern-california-judge-found-guilty-fatally-shooting-wife-rcna202500\">Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LOS ANGELES \u2014 A California jury on Tuesday convicted a judge of fatally shooting his wife after an argument at their Anaheim Hills home in 2023, the district attorney\u2019s office said. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson was convicted of second-degree murder around six weeks&nbsp;after an earlier jury deadlocked 11-1&nbsp;in favor of a guilty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":41388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1152],"tags":[1189,1700,1530,1858],"class_list":["post-41387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanrights","tag-california","tag-judge","tag-shooting","tag-wife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41387"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41389,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41387\/revisions\/41389"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}