Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006 • Berridge faces 43-years to life in prison for attempting to murder deputy

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2006 edition of the Lassen County Times.

The verdict in the trial for the attempted murder of a Lassen County sheriff’s deputy came down to who the jury would believe.

Would the seven women and five men accept the testimony of the distinguished-looking sheriff’s deputy in his trim brown dress uniform, who said a felon pointed a sawed-off shotgun at his face and pulled the trigger but it didn’t go off?

Or would they listen to the young convicted felon, with 666 tattooed across the back of his head, who admitted illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun but said he never even took the gun out of its hiding place and the deputy lied to cover his failure to follow procedures?

The jury deliberated from 4:15 p.m. to just before 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9 and from about 9 a.m. to just before noon on Friday morning, Feb. 10, before convicting Andrew M. Berridge, 27, of Susanville, of attempted murder of a peace officer and two special findings.

The jury found Berridge personally used a firearm and Ken McCormick, who has 17 years of law enforcement experience, was a peace officer in the performance of his duty. They also found Berridge guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and illegally possessing a sawed-off shotgun.

District Attorney Bob Burns said Berridge faces a maximum sentence of 43 years to life in prison at sentencing set for 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 28.

One of the jurors was visibly upset when the verdict was read, Burns said, as though “it was an emotional moment.”

The trial began when more than 60 people were called for jury selection Tuesday, Feb. 7.

Defendant’s testimony
“It’s a lie. I never tried to kill him,” Berridge testified as the second-to-last witness before the jury left the courtroom at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9.

Admitting he was still high and his judgement was impaired when the incident occurred, Berridge said he smoked “just a bowl full” of crystal methamphetamine, known as crank, about eight hours before Deputy Ken McCormick contacted him.

The deputy pulled up behind Berridge in the Willard Hill parking area off Highway 36 west of Susanville at 9 p.m. April 28, according to the testimony. Berridge, a parolee at large, was sitting in his red 1987 Nissan Stanza smoking a cigarette, according to repeated testimony at the two-day trial.

During the contact, District Attorney Bob Burns alleged, Berridge pulled a shotgun and attempted to shoot the deputy. The single-barrel, 12-gauge, sawed-off shotgun allegedly malfunctioned.

“We may never know why,” Burns said.

Burns called McCormick into the courtroom to testify after Berridge left the stand and asked him to respond to Berridge’s claim he never pointed the weapon at McCormick.

“That would be inaccurate,” McCormick said, adding the barrel was two feet away from his face.

McCormick also said he sat up with his gun in his lap almost the entire night after the confrontation because he knew Berridge was still at large.

“I was extremely rattled and terrified, basically,” the deputy told the jury.

Cross examination
During Burns’ cross examination, Berridge agreed with Burns’ assertion that a shotgun barrel pointed at his face was not something McCormick was likely to mistake. He denied telling investigators the day after the incident that he didn’t try to shoot McCormick and “the slide action of the shotgun was scary enough.”

Berridge asserted he simply tried to pull the shotgun up from between the console and the front passenger seat in order to shove it back under a blanket where Berridge hid the shotgun when McCormick pulled up behind him.

Berridge said he was trying to keep McCormick from seeing the protruding grip while the deputy’s attention was diverted as he spoke into the shoulder-mic of his police radio.

He claimed he was trying to take the gun to Chester to sell it in order to get enough money to marry his fiancée. Berridge said he knew it was illegal to possess a shotgun with a barrel shorter than 16-inches and admitted he was guilty of that charge.

Berridge also testified he knew he was guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm, because he was convicted in Lassen County Superior Court in June 1999 of lewd acts with a child less than 14 years old. Berridge said he was 19 years old at the time and admitted having sex with his underage girlfriend. He later violated his probation, went to prison and was released two months to the day before the April 28 incident.

Once McCormick learned Berridge was a felon and subject to search of his vehicle at any time, Berridge said McCormick should have placed Berridge in the back of the patrol unit while he searched Berridge’s car.

The defendant allegedly fled the scene in the Nissan and later abandoned it. Lassen and Plumas County officers took him into custody at a Chester apartment complex the next day without incident about two hours after they discovered his location.

The Lassen County Search and Rescue team later helped the sheriff’s department recover Berridge’s Nissan just east of the Westwood Cemetery. They found the shotgun under a fuel tank at the Westwood Y.

Closing arguments
In her closing argument, defense attorney Rhea Giannotti asserted a person under stress responds to the fight or flight instinct, during which higher brain functions, such as advanced reasoning, shut down. In such a situation she said, an officer who saw a shotgun might think it was pointed at him, or think he heard the action being pumped, when in fact, other noises and actions actually took place.

She stressed the prosecution’s obligation to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Burns reminded the jury investigators found four shotgun shells, one in the car, one on the ground at Willard Hill, one at the Fredonyer Snowmobile parking lot and one in the shotgun.

One of the shells found at Willard Hill had a shallow dimple in the primer. The prosecution claimed the dimple indicated Berridge tried to fire the gun at McCormick and it didn’t go off. Berridge claimed the dimple proved he tried to fire the gun before the deputy arrived and it malfunctioned.

Experts from the California Department of Justice, testifying for the prosecution, and Forensic Science Associates, of Richmond, California, hired by the defense, both said the shotgun never failed to fire when they tested it repeatedly. Both agreed a problem with a protruding firing pin probably caused the dimple in the shell. Neither could say if a misfire caused the dimple.

Burns asked Berridge if he stopped at the Fredonyer parking lot to shoot the shotgun since, Burns alleged, Berridge was angry that it failed to discharge when Berridge tried to shoot McCormick.

Berridge said he’d never been to the Fredonyer parking lot but he did know the parking lot was paved.

The jury had the option of convicting Berridge of the lesser charges of assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer, or brandishing a firearm at an officer.

Burns initially objected to defense testing of the shotgun because possession of the weapon is illegal. The sheriff’s department eventually mailed it to the lab, Forensic Science Associates, of Richmond, California.