Oil spill trial gets tense as allegations fly

SANTA BARBARA -- As they disagreed about the appropriateness of the district attorney's out-of-court statements, and about trial procedures, tensions flared Monday between lawyers in the trial to decide whether Plains All American Pipeline was criminally responsible for the 142,000 gallon spill near Refugio State Beach in 2015.

Before the jury was brought in, Deputy Attorney General Brett Morris said he wanted to correct the record and state that District Attorney Joyce Dudley's comments in a Daily Journal article last week were not inappropriate.

Defense attorney Gary Lincenberg -- principal at Bird, Marella, Boxer, Wolpert, Nessim, Drooks, Lincenberg & Rhow PC -- responded to Morris by repeating his argument from last week that it was inappropriate for Dudley to speak to the media about details of the case and that she was attempting to prejudicially influence it. In particular, he objected to Dudley's characterization of the reasons all charges were dismissed against a safety officer for the oil company, the only individual who had been indicted by the county Grand Jury in 2016.

Morris focused on Dudley's comments in response to questions about a public statement Plains , saying they fell within the California Rules of Professional Conduct and were not prejudicial. Morris then submitted to the court two Daily Journal articles from last week.

"I have great confidence in this jury as far as their selection and their ability to be fair and impartial," Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge James Herman said. "I have notified the jury not to read any news article about the case."

After the jurors entered the courtroom, John Shelton, the top corrosion supervisor at Plains, took the witness stand. After a slog of technical questions from both Morris and Lincenberg, tensions over procedural conduct persisted.

Morris was asked to verify a document submitted as evidence by Lincenberg, to which Morris said, "Give me a second, I'm just receiving this now."

A moment later, Lincenberg stated to the court, "Just for the record, he is not just receiving the document now."

Herman, with a stern look on his face, immediately ordered, "sidebar." Herman beckoned both attorneys to approach the bench for a whispered conversation. The judge then told the jury to disregard the colloquy between Lincenberg and Morris.

The next witness to take the stand was Darren Palmer, assistant division manager of the Western Division at Plains. As Morris questioned Palmer about details of emergency response protocol, objections from the defense on the foundation of relevance or undue consumption of time began to mount. After a series of consecutive objections, Herman called for another sidebar.

What was eventually revealed in Palmer's testimony was that on the day of the spill, Palmer missed a call from Plains' Santa Barbara pipeline's operations supervisor Kathy Randall around 1:30 p.m.

According to Palmer, he was only made aware of the spill after receiving a text message from James Buchanan, the Plains safety officer previously indicted on allegations of mishandling procedures.

All charges against Buchanan were dismissed as the trial began. People v. Plains All American Pipeline LP, 1495091 (S. Barbara Super.Ct. filed May 16, 2016).

Dudley's comments in a previous Daily Journal article about the reason behind the dismissal were brought up at the opening of the session Monday.

In the article, Dudley said, "The charges were dismissed in the interest of justice based upon subsequently developed evidence relating to Mr. Buchanan's lack of personal responsibility for the alleged crimes."

Lincenberg told the judge that public comments by Dudley and then-Attorney General Kamala Harris had been discussed in 2016 and he argued that the recent comments went against the court's directive.

Buchanan's attorney, Douglas Richards, has also taken umbrage with how Dudley characterized the reason why Buchanan's charges were dismissed.

The dismissal order is heavily redacted, and though there are notations about cell phone records, the exact reason for the decision to dismiss Buchanan from the case is sealed.

According to a statement on Richards' website, he was able to get one charge against Buchanan dismissed based on a lack of evidence and another charge dismissed on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. What kind of misconduct is alleged has not been publicly stated.