Judge Orders Oakland Schools to Find Way to Expel Campus Crime

In the first ruling of its type, a Superior Court judge Monday cited California’s “victims’ bill of rights” initiative and ordered the Oakland Unified School District to prepare a plan to curb violence in the schools.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Richard Bartalini stopped short of ordering police into the schools, but directed school officials to return to court in September with a plan for halting violence, drug dealing and other crimes.

Bartalini suggested that he may assume jurisdiction over the Oakland schools to ensure that they maintain security, much as judges adopt jurisdiction over schools to ensure compliance with desegregation orders.

The court order applies only to Oakland schools, but the decision is expected to be appealed and subsequent appellate court rulings would have a much wider effect.

“Today students and staff of public schools attend schools where drug dealing, theft, robbery, rape, assault and even murder are common occurrences,” said Bartalini, who took the unusual step of reading his entire 38-page opinion in court.

” . . . Safe, secure and peaceful schools are constitutionally mandated,” he added.

Bartalini’s order states that students and teachers who become crime victims on campus may sue school districts--as well as the attacker--for failing to take “reasonable” steps to ensure safety. In Monday’s case, a high school student sued following an attack by an older youth.

The “victims’ bill of rights” initiative, adopted by voters in June, 1982, as Proposition 8, called for sweeping changes in the state’s administration of criminal law. It limited plea bargaining, toughened sentences of repeat offenders and changed rules of evidence to help prosecutors.

The initiative also created a constitutional amendment guaranteeing safe schools. But the provision simply stated that schools must be safe, without saying whether educators or police were supposed to ensure safety and without providing any method of enforcement.

Until Monday, no judge had sought to enforce the measure on a school district. In his order, Bartalini emphasized that school officials must not only develop a security plan but must also carry it out.

Bartalini said students and school employees have an “inalienable right” to safe campuses and added that unless schools make a serious effort to comply with the victims’ bill, “the will of the people” would be thwarted.

Hiawatha T. Roberts, attorney for Oakland schools, has called the initiative’s provision vague and unworkable, and indicated after the ruling that Bartalini’s decision will be appealed.

“It would certainly be a great benefit to everyone involved to have a definitive ruling by the (state) Supreme Court,” Roberts said.

Oakland school administrators had argued that they had no obligation--or expertise--to guarantee campus safety. Such duties, they argued, should be left to police. Moreover, the district faces a $12-million budget deficit this year, and no one knows how much such a security program might cost.

Bartalini, however, said cost should not be a factor.

“Denying a constitutional right on grounds of inadequate resources cannot be justified,” he wrote. “The ‘safe schools’ provision is an affirmative duty on school districts to make schools safe and may not be disregarded on the basis of cost.”

Statistics Cited

Bartalini cited statistics showing that there were 5,300 assaults on students and staff in Los Angeles County schools during the 1984-1985 school year, and 1,500 instances where students were found carrying dangerous weapons. He cited state Department of Education numbers showing that in 1981, 215 students and 24 teachers were attacked daily across the state.

The judge cited no statistics for the 50,000-student Oakland district, but an Oakland Police Department spokesman said that so far this school year there has been one murder and three shootings in the schools.

Bartalini said he relied heavily in his opinion on legal briefs and articles produced by the National School Safety Center, a federally funded organization in Sacramento.

George Nicholson, who heads the organization and was in court as the ruling was read, hailed the decision, saying, “I really believe that this is one of those landmark cases.”

Nicholson, who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general four years ago, said the solution to school crime may involve such tactics as the use of metal detectors outside school buildings or increased use of school police. He said that Boston schools have 100 officers, while Oakland, which is about the same size, has three.

The suit was brought by attorney Kevin Washburn on behalf of Stephen Hosemann. Hosemann’s watch was stolen by an older youth in 1981 when Hosemann was in junior high school. Hosemann told school administrators, who suspended the older youth.

Two years later, the youth beat up Hosemann, and at another time, cursed and threatened him. That prompted Hosemann to demand that his attacker be barred from his high school. School officials, somewhat perplexed, noted that the attacker never tried to enroll at Hosemann’s high school, and also that the older youth was 18 and no longer attending classes.

Hosemann, now 18 and a senior, left court disappointed, saying he had hoped the judge would have ordered the older youth not to set foot on his high school campus.

“I guess it’s fine, as far as it goes,” Hosemann said.