Police Spy Case : U.S. Security Claim Kills Suit by JDL

In a highly unusual decision, a Santa Monica Superior Court judge Thursday cited national security as grounds for dismissing a lawsuit accusing the Los Angeles Police Department of violating curbs on abuses by police intelligence officers.

The City of Los Angeles had asked that the suit, filed by the Jewish Defense League, be dismissed because it would expose national secrets, the first time any municipality has raised such a defense, according to city attorneys and legal observers.

Judge David Rothman announced his decision in Superior Court in Santa Monica after more than a month of hearings behind closed doors, including testimony by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and experts on terrorism from the Rand Corp., according to attorneys in the case and court records.

Provocation Alleged

The lawsuit was filed in May, 1984, by the JDL against the city, Gates and Larry Winston, whom the suit identifies as a Los Angeles police officer. The suit alleged that Winston, using the name Joel Kohen, infiltrated the JDL between 1979 and 1984 and unsuccessfully attempted to provoke the group to commit violent acts, including bombing Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign office on Wilshire Boulevard in March, 1984.

After a highly publicized police spying case brought by the ACLU on behalf of 144 individuals and organizations, Los Angeles police last year toughened rules governing undercover officers. One decrees that the officers not “cause dissension within an organization or incite unlawful activity.”

One of the few pieces of evidence made public in the JDL case was the transcript of a 1976 segment of the CBS television show “60 minutes.” During the broadcast, JDL leader Irv Rubin acknowledged speaking with a self-described professional assassin about killing Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Rubin, who describes himself as national chairman of the JDL, said he lives in the San Fernando Valley but would not say where. He said the JDL also has its Los Angeles office in the Valley.

‘Contrary to Public Interest’

Rothman, in announcing his decision to dismiss the JDL suit, said, “Even were plaintiffs’ claims to be true, I find by the overwhelming weight of the evidence that the maintenance of this litigation is contrary to the public interest.”

For the defendants to present their side of the case, Rothman said, would “significantly compromise not only local, but national and international law enforcement.”

The judge said the city’s grounds for requesting dismissal were “unprecedented under California decisional law,” although there are precedents for claims of national security privilege under federal law.

Appeal Planned

Roger Diamond, JDL attorney, said he would appeal the dismissal of the suit. Diamond said that among the grounds for his appeal would be the secret hearings held by Rothman, from which all but the city’s witnesses and attorneys were excluded.

Diamond said he also wanted to bring the case to an appellate court level, where rulings can become legal precedent.

Allan Adler, an attorney who monitors cases pitting national security against civil-rights claims for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, said he had never heard of local police making a national security claim. He said local law enforcement agencies may not conduct national or international security investigations without coordination with the FBI, according to an executive order issued by President Reagan in 1981.

“How can they invoke this privilege when they have shown no evidence (in open court) that they are working with the FBI?” Adler asked.

In dismissing the case, however, Rothman suggested that Los Angeles police had at least conferred with the FBI in an investigation of the JDL. “The confidentiality of federal agencies’ information is involved in this matter,” he said.

Rothman said he believed that procedures set up last year, in a compromise between the Police Department and the ACLU, could adequately cope with the charges made by the JDL. The procedures include an appeal to the Board of Police Commissioners by groups that believe they have been spied upon improperly by police.

‘Not Good Enough’

“That’s just an internal control and it’s not good enough,” Diamond said. “I think that the courts are independent of the Police Department and that’s the best way to go.”

The grievance procedures stemmed from the ACLU’s 1978 suit on behalf of unions, political groups and religious organizations, all of which alleged they had been spied upon by the Public Disorder Intelligence Division of the police.

The suit led to the disclosure of thousands of pages of secret police intelligence documents, including information embarrassing to the department. Among the disclosures was that police officers monitored private meetings between Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley and supporters of the United Farm Workers.

The strengthened police guidelines, including one mandating that police spies not provoke violence, were part of the settlement reached last February. The city also paid $1.8 million to the plaintiffs and their attorneys.

Name of Unit Changed

Earlier last year, the name of the Police Department’s intelligence unit was changed to the Anti-Terrorist Division.

Paul Hoffman, legal director for the ACLU in Southern Los Angeles, said he had tried to question the Police Department about the JDL allegations. Hoffman said he also was told that national security was at issue, and said that his requests were denied.

Hoffman said that, because Winston’s alleged activities extended two months past the settlement date of the ACLU suit, a public airing of the case is needed to test the Police Department’s commitment to the guidelines.

The JDL suit was filed last May, asking $2.5 million in damages. The suit alleged that police infiltration of the organization violated the city’s guidelines and the organization’s constitutional rights.

No Comment on Officer

City attorneys would not confirm or deny that there was a man named Larry Winston or that he worked for the Police Department.

The suit alleged that, during several years as a JDL infiltrator, Winston urged the group to attack various individuals and the offices of the Institute of Historical Review in Torrance, whose members deny that millions of Jews were killed during World War II.

The lawsuit was cited Wednesday after a bomb damaged the Northridge home of a retired history teacher who serves on the board of the institute. The teacher, George Ashley, charged that the JDL set the bomb, but Rubin alleged that the bombing was an attempt by police to discredit the JDL on the day before the Santa Monica court hearing.

Sitting in the back of the courtroom yesterday, watching the hearing, were three men who identified themselves as members of the Anti-Terrorist Division. They would not give their names and declined to comment on the case.

But Assistant City Atty. Lewis Unger said Rothman’s ruling “took guts and integrity. Anytime you do something that’s never been done before, it takes guts.”