An Irvine-based attorney whose second-degree murder conviction in Arizona was overturned by a judge four years ago told an Orange County Superior Court judge Monday that he would not resist attempts to extradite him back to Maricopa County to face another trial on charges of killing his stepdaughter’s husband.
Robert Douglas Fischer’s attorney, Dyke Huish, argued that a governor’s warrant issued for his client’s arrest and transfer to Arizona for another trial was improper because Fischer posted $500,000 bond in November on a refiling of a count of second-degree murder. A governor’s warrant is issued when a suspect is declared a fugitive, Huish argued.
Fischer, 59, was arrested Thursday on the warrant. Huish said an arraignment date was set for March 12 in Arizona.
“The governor’s warrant is an inappropriate warrant because he’s not a fugitive,” Huish said. “How can you be a fugitive if you posted bond?”
However, Orange County Superior Court Judge Nancy Zeltzer concluded that the governor’s warrant supersedes the bail and calls for his extradition. Fischer indicated he wouldn’t fight extradition, but Huish said he wanted to leave open his options of appealing the ruling when told sheriff’s deputies in Arizona could take up to 90 days to transport the defendant.
Fischer, who is a former police officer, was visiting his family in late December 2010 when his stepdaughter’s 49-year-old husband, Norman “Lee” Radder, sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. Radder was a dirt bike magazine publisher in Orange County.
According to a state Supreme Court ruling in Arizona upholding the trial court judge’s ruling granting a new trial on the basis of lack of evidence, Lee showed Fischer an email about a “non-compete agreement” that upset him. Lee and Fischer continued “drinking heavily,” the justices wrote.
Fischer testified in his trial that he woke up the following morning to a “popping” sound and found Radder’s body in the kitchen, according to the Supreme Court ruling.
Maricopa County prosecutors argued that Fischer shot Radder and made it appear to be a suicide.
“There was, quite simply, no physical evidence that the defendant fired the gun that killed Lee,” the justices wrote in their ruling issued in April 2017. The legal theory that he staged it as a suicide was “not supported by the physical evidence, lacks credibility, and is sheer speculation,” the justices concluded.
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