Editorials

The trial of a San Francisco police officer charged with assaulting a Berkeley woman during a domestic incident during which he allegedly bound her hands with a nylon strap began in Oakland Superior Court Tuesday, as prosecution and defense lawyers met privately with the judge to discuss evidence. 

Michael Cardoza, the lawyer for 52-year-old San Francisco motorcycle officer James McKeever, said Tuesday he would ask Oakland Superior Court Judge Carlos G. Ynostroza to exclude evidence that McKeever was involved in a separate assault in Texas shortly after the alleged Berkeley incident. 

McKeever was arrested at a home on Seventh Street in west Berkeley in August after police responding to a 911 call discovered McKeever’s one-time girlfriend with a broken tooth and her hands tied behind her back.  

He was charged with battery and false imprisonment.  

Two weeks later, McKeever was allegedly involved in a separate assault on his stepdaughter at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. He was charged with felony assault on a child by Texas authorities.  

Cardoza said the Texas incident was not relevant to the trial set to begin in Oakland.  

"There’s no reason to introduce it but to prejudice the jury," Cardoza said. "What does it have to do with this?"  

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Tara Desautels declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing the possibility that the court might impose a gag order on the jury.  

Fort Worth attorney Carole Kerr, who is representing McKeever in the Texas case, did not return calls. 

The DA is expected to argue that testimony about the Texas incident is relevant and should not be kept from the jury.  

Although the 36-year-old, woman who police say was assaulted by McKeever, appeared in Berkeley Superior Court for a hearing in the case in October, her name has been deleted from court documents to protect her privacy.  

The woman told the Daily Planet in October that she is active in Berkeley politics and community affairs.  

She said she and McKeever, who is married, have had an on-and-off relationship for several years.  

Cardoza said he intends to show that the alleged victim in the Berkeley incident was actually responsible for the altercation that led to the charges against McKeever. 

"I’ve got two witnesses that say this woman is emotionally unbalanced, that she has attacked McKeever on other occasions," he said.  

McKeever told Berkeley police after his arrest that the woman slapped and kicked him, and he tried to restrain her. According to a police report, McKeever outweighs the woman by about 100 pounds and is nearly a foot taller than her.  

McKeever, who has served on the San Francisco police force for 26 years, was suspended by Chief of Police Fred Lau in September pending an investigation by the Police Commission into the incidents. McKeever was reinstated but has been reassigned to a desk job.  

Dressed in a black suit, McKeever waited alone in an otherwise deserted sixth floor courtroom in downtown Oakland Tuesday morning, while lawyers for the defense and prosecution met in the judge’s chambers.  

Lawyers in the case said they expect to begin picking a jury Tuesday and that testimony in the case would begin later this week, perhaps as early as Wednesday.