ACLU Suit Against Newport Beach Police Dismissed

A judge on Friday dismissed a 6-year-old lawsuit against the Newport Beach Police Department, ruling that the American Civil Liberties Union failed to prove claims of illegal police surveillance.

While an ACLU spokesman called the decision “technical” and a city attorney agreed that the victory was on narrow legal grounds, Newport Beach Police Sgt. Richard Long, the man at the center of the dispute, said he was “elated.”

Long, who triggered the suit when he attended an ACLU meeting at a high school in 1980 held to discuss police spying and other issues, countersued for $250,000 in damages, claiming emotional distress.

The ACLU first claimed that Long was conducting surveillance that violated the group’s constitutional rights to privacy and free association. Long was not in uniform at the meeting, but he identified himself as a community relations officer for the Police Department when ACLU officials asked who he was.

“They were trying to say my mere presence would have a ‘chilling’ effect on the individuals’ freedom of speech,” Long said. “I think any chilling would have been self-induced.”

Both sides had submitted the case to Orange County Superior Court Judge Leonard Goldstein for a decision without a formal trial. The ACLU had narrowed its case to a request for a simple declaration that police officers attending public meetings have a duty to identify themselves.

Goldstein did not rule on the constitutional issue. He decided such a claim is “not the proper subject’ for a judicial declaration, as sought by the ACLU.

“Even if it were,” Goldstein wrote, “the circumstances during which the alleged violation occurred was a one-time affair, and there is no factual basis indicating likely repetition, either of the event or the alleged violation.”

Long filed a separate lawsuit against the ACLU, claiming that he had sustained $250,000 in damages for the emotional distress he suffered when ACLU officials kicked him out of the meeting after he identified himself. Despite settlement negotiations in May, that case is still pending and scheduled for trial later this fall.

“The significance of this ruling is that the judge is saying the ACLU’s position is much ado about nothing,” Long said. “They accused me of being a spy for the purposes of gathering intelligence from a meeting of lawfully gathered citizens.

“My purpose was to hear what their concerns were and try to improve the relations between the ACLU people and the Police Department. There wasn’t anything underhanded about it.

“What they did to me was wrong.”

Carole A. Korade, the Newport Beach assistant city attorney who argued the case, said the city was pleased with the result.

“Although the court didn’t make any broad-based constitutional statement here, when you look at the initial complaint and the end result, it was a victory,” Korade said.

Goldstein also ordered the ACLU to pay the city’s costs and attorney fees in defending the case, an unusual move in lawsuits alleging violations of constitutional rights. Korade said lawyers employed by the city had handled the case, and the cost hadn’t been determined.

“The Police Department’s policies have not changed,” Korade said. “Long was there within the course and scope of his duties as a community relations officer.”

Korade said the ACLU first claimed Long’s presence indicated a comprehensive program of police spying. But the civil liberties group recently stipulated in court that no evidence was found to show that the department surreptitiously monitored or maintained files on any group involved in lawful activity.

The only remaining question in the case was “the very tiny constitutional issue of when and how a police officer should identify himself at a public meeting,” which Goldstein did not answer, Korade said.

ACLU attorney Paul Hoffman said the ruling was made on a “fairly technical ground. It really doesn’t have a lot of meaning. It’s certainly not a statement that the Newport Beach police or any other police department is entitled to send policemen into meetings to take notes.”

Hoffman said an appeal is under consideration. He said he believes that Long’s actions violate rights to privacy and free association under the state Constitution.

“It’s essentially a failure to achieve a victory, not a loss,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman pointed to the ACLU’s settlement with the Los Angeles Police Department, in which sharp limitations were placed on the use of police surveillance of groups involved in activities protected by the First Amendment. That case had significant effects on police departments throughout Southern California, he said, and may mean an appeal of the Newport Beach decision is unnecessary.

Long, who now is in charge of the Police Department’s vice operations, said he believed that the dispute became “a personal thing.”

“I was being personally attacked,” he said. “It caused me a tremendous amount of grief. I was embarrassed and humiliated.

“Had a police officer done to them what they did to me, the police officer would have been severely disciplined.”