California judge Jeffrey Ferguson was arrested Thursday night, Aug. 3, by Anaheim police on suspicion of murdering his wife, a department spokesman said.
Officers responded to a call of a shooting around 8 p.m. at a home in the 8500 block of East Canyon Vista Drive and found Sheryl Ferguson, 65, inside with at least one fatal gunshot wound, Sgt. Jon McClintock said.
She was pronounced dead at their two-story, Anaheim Hills home.
A college-age son was in the home at the time, multiple sources said, and made the 911 call.
Police found Ferguson, 72, at the home and arrested him without incident, McClintock said. The Orange County Superior court judge was booked into the Anaheim city jail on $1 million bail; by early Friday afternoon, he had bailed out.
“Detectives are not disclosing any additional details at this time because the investigation is ongoing,” the sergeant said in a statement.
From 2017, see: Judge admonished for Facebook comment, friendships with defense attorneys
Investigators continued searching the couple’s home Friday morning and brought out more than a dozen guns as well as other boxes, including some with ammo, and items in bags.
Asked by a Southern California News Group photographer about the guns, McClintock would only say investigators found the gun believed to have been used in the shooting.
Aside from a couple of women out for a morning walk, the neighborhood was quiet except for the hum of television-news vehicles. A pickup truck and an SUV remained parked in the driveway.
Hours before the shooting, the judge had re-posted a 2013 photo of his wife on his Facebook page.
Defense attorney James Crawford said the news of Sheryl Ferguson’s death has rocked Orange County’s legal community, where Ferguson was one of the better-known players.
“I think everybody is shocked,” said Crawford said. “There’s no reason to believe that something like this could happen involving Jeff. There’s no signs. … I’m really sad about Jeff, I don’t know what to say.”
Crawford said he once had a drug case against Ferguson, who was a prosecutor at the time.
“I thought he was fair and easy to deal with,” Crawford said. “He was straightforward and wouldn’t try to jam you if you weren’t ready to proceed.”
Attorney Lloyd Freeberg said he worked with Ferguson in helping drug and alcohol abusers get clean and sober — Freeberg from the defense chair and Ferguson from the bench at the courthouse in Fullerton.
The two had become so close that Freeberg cried all night after hearing of Ferguson’s arrest and the death of his wife.
“This is a great loss,” Freeberg said. “I’ve shed an awful lot of tears on this one. He saved a hell of a lot of people by getting them clean and sober and making them play by the rules.”
As a judge, Ferguson was more interested in helping defendants gain sobriety than putting them in jail, Freeberg said.
Freeberg’s former clients as well as legal professionals were shocked by the recent news.
“This morning I went to North Court and had to turn around and leave, it was so emotional,” Freeberg said. “It was pretty devastating, a lot of people were stunned. They’re pretty troubled by it.”
Freeberg said he also knew Sheryl Ferguson, who often accompanied the judge to professional and social events: “They seemed to be a good match. I think there’s a lot to the story we don’t know.”
Before rising to the bench in 2014, Ferguson was an Orange County deputy district attorney for 31 years, joining the office in 1983, according to his campaign biography.
As a prosecutor, he worked his way up from the juvenile court to being named senior deputy district attorney, assigned to the Major Narcotics Enforcement Team. He also led the Probation Offender Search and Seizure Enforcement task force, comprised of 30 separate state and local police agencies.
As a judge, Ferguson was publicly admonished in 2017 by the state Commission on Judicial Performance for making an inappropriate comment about a judicial candidate on Facebook and remaining Facebook “friends” with attorneys appearing before him in court.
The panel found that Ferguson violated the code of judicial ethics by posting a comment “with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth of the statement.”
In his campaign biography, Ferguson said his wife previously worked for both the Santa Barbara and Orange County probation departments and then for American Funds Service Company for almost 20 years.
Where he will make his first court appearance, if he is charged with a crime, is unclear. Orange County’s presiding judge can decide to transfer the case outside of the county if that jurist decides a conflict of interest exists.
On Friday, Orange County prosecutors were coordinating with the State Attorney General’s Office to determine who would take the potential case against Ferguson.
“Our thoughts go to the family,” Orange County Superior Court Presiding Judge Maria Hernandez said in a statement. “We all pray for their comfort during this trying time.
“Although no case has been filed with our court, when appropriate we will take all necessary steps to ensure full compliance with our legal and ethical obligations,” she said.
Reporters Sean Emery and Nathaniel Percy and photographer Paul Bersebach contributed to this report.