Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson (Anaheim Police Dept.) and the home where he allegedly shot his wife (ABC7 screenshot)
A 72-year-old superior court judge in California was arrested this week for allegedly killing his wife, accused of fatally shooting the 65-year-old woman inside their plush family home. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson was taken into custody on Thursday and charged with one count of murder in the slaying of Sheryl Ferguson, authorities announced.
According to a press release from the Anaheim Police Department, officers at about 8 p.m. on Aug. 3 responded to a residence located in the 8500 block of E. Canyon Vista Drive in regard to reports of a shooting.
Upon arriving at the address, first responders located an adult female victim — later identified as Sheryl Ferguson — inside the residence. She appeared to be suffering from at least one gunshot wound, police said. Medical personnel pronounced her dead at the scene.
Police then made contact with the victim’s husband — identified as Judge Ferguson — who was at the home and placed him under arrest without incident and charged him with suspicion of murder. He was transported to the Anaheim Police Department’s Detention Facility where he was being held in lieu of $1 million bond as of Friday morning.
Authorities say they are not releasing any additional details regarding the matter due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.
Ferguson, a former member of the U.S. Navy, started his legal career as a deputy district attorney in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. He was promoted in the 1990s to senior deputy district attorney and had postings with the Major Narcotics Enforcement Team and the Probation Offender Search and Seizure Enforcement Task Force. Ferguson served as president of the North Orange County Bar Association from 2012 to 2014. He was elected to the Orange County Superior Court bench on June 3, 2014.
During his career, he was named Prosecutor of the Year four times by the Orange County Narcotic Officers Association.
One of Ferguson’s colleagues from the courthouse spoke to the Los Angeles Times on the condition of anonymity and reportedly told the newspaper that no one seemed to know about any domestic issues between the judge and his wife.
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“Absolutely shocked,” one of Ferguson’s colleagues told the Times early Friday. “I had them sit on my couch. I would never have thought this for a minute.”
Orange County Superior Court Presiding Judge Maria Hernandez released a statement to multiple news outlets wishing Sheryl Ferguson’s family thoughts and prayers.
“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. “As this is a pending matter still under investigation, the court is unable to provide any further information at this time.”
Ferguson in 2017 found himself at the center of a controversy that ended with him being formally rebuked by the Commission on Judicial Performance after a lewd comment posted to his Facebook page.
According to the commission’s order, then-Deputy District Attorney Karen Schatzle in 2016 was running for judicial office. Ferguson supported her opponent, Judge Scott Steiner, who two years earlier had been publicly censured for having sex with two women in his courthouse office.
Schatzle in April 2016 posted on the North Orange County Bar Association page that Steiner “uses his office for sex and yet so many aren’t concerned, crazy politics!” Ferguson posted a response reading: “Karen Schatzle has sex with defense lawyer whike [sic] shw [sic] is DA on his cases and nobody cares. Interesting politics.”
“The commission found that Judge Ferguson’s post claiming that Ms. Schatzle was having sex at the time, or had sex in the past, with a defense attorney while she was a prosecutor on his cases was made with knowing or reckless disregard for the truth,” the commission wrote in its ruling. “Judge Ferguson could provide no factual support for his reference to “commonly known information” that Schatzle and the defense attorney appeared on the same cases during the time they were in an intimate relationship.”
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