Judge Sentenced to Life for Shooting His Wife During Drunken Fight

A California judge who once handed out prison sentences is now heading to prison himself—35 years to life—for fatally shooting his wife during a drunken fight over money.

Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, a longtime Orange County Superior Court judge, was convicted in April of second-degree murder with gun enhancements for the 2023 killing of his wife, Sheryl, 65.

According to prosecutors, the couple began arguing about family finances while out at a Mexican restaurant on Aug. 3, 2023. At one point, Ferguson made a gun-like gesture toward his wife. Later that night, back at their Anaheim Hills home, the fight escalated while they watched Breaking Bad. Ferguson pulled a pistol from an ankle holster and shot Sheryl in the chest at close range.

Their son Phillip immediately called 911, while Ferguson texted his court clerk and bailiff: “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry.” When police arrived, he smelled strongly of alcohol and was wearing an empty holster.

At sentencing, Phillip told the court he believed the shooting was accidental, despite his father’s long struggles with drinking. “If I harbored any doubts of this in my mind, I could not stand to look my father in the eye, nor to hug him, nor to even call him my father,” he said.

Ferguson himself told the court the shooting was a “horrific accident,” saying, “For me, Sheryl didn’t die just once, Aug. 3, 2023. She dies again and again every morning I wake up. I wish God had taken me instead.”

But prosecutors argued it was no accident, pointing to Ferguson’s decision to handle a gun while drinking and angry. Judge Eleanor J. Hunter called the evidence “absolutely overwhelming” and described Ferguson as someone who “doesn’t believe the rules apply to him.”

Authorities later found 48 firearms and more than 26,000 rounds of ammunition at his home. Ferguson was suspended without pay after his conviction and is now expected to be formally removed from the bench.

The sentencing followed a mistrial earlier in March, when the first jury deadlocked. A retrial secured the guilty verdict that sealed Ferguson’s fate.