New State Law Fights Police Ticket Fixing : S.D. Department Says Measure It Inspired Won’t Change Its Methods

Legislation intended to curb questionable ticket dismissals by the San Diego Police Department has been signed by Gov. George Deukmejian, but department officials say the new law will have no effect on the way they do business.

Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) said his bill was a reaction to disclosures last year that top department officials dismissed, or “fixed,” tickets for members of the media, politicians, friends of police, family members and influential San Diegans.

He said he was astonished to learn that no law prohibited what the San Diego police were doing. His bill, Stirling said when he introduced it earlier this year, would make it a crime for police to dismiss a ticket after it was issued and before it was decided by the courts.

But Stirling’s bill, signed by the governor Monday night after last-minute amendments, will not change the way the San Diego Police Department dismisses tickets, said Police Cmdr. Jim Kennedy.

“We do it exactly as the bill is written,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy explained that San Diego police have never destroyed tickets or dismissed them independently. Instead, recommendations to dismiss moving violations are sent to the courts, and suggestions to cancel parking tickets are sent to the city treasurer, who processes those violations.

Before the department’s policy was changed in the wake of a series of articles in The Times last year, top officials, including Police Chief Bill Kolender, attached notes to tickets urging that they be dismissed by the proper agency. Now Kennedy holds sole authority over such requests.

The new law says anyone who “alters, conceals, modifies, nullifies, or destroys” a ticket before it is filed with the court, in the case of a moving violation, or the “processing agency,” in the case of parking tickets, is guilty of a misdemeanor.

Stirling said the spirit, if not the letter, of his bill addresses the San Diego situation. But he said he expects that no one will be prosecuted under the new statute.

“Here’s the philosophical problem: Who makes the decision to cancel the ticket?” Stirling said. “The police apparently were making the decision, which was always honored by someone else. This clarifies the fact that law enforcement has no authority to cancel the ticket on their own.

“What have we changed?” Stirling asked. “I guess we’ve changed the burden of proof and the number of professionals who are going to be responsible for the decision, and we have taken away the de facto authority of the Police Department to cancel a ticket without cause.”

In San Diego, a spokesman for Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller said Tuesday that Miller has decided not to issue a written reason on why his office declined to investigate the improper dismissals of tickets by Kolender and other high-ranking police officials.

Instead, a deputy district attorney has discussed the matter over the telephone with two staff members from the city attorney’s office, Miller’s spokesman, Steve Casey, said.

Casey said Miller decided against issuing a written explanation after newspapers recently reported that his office would not pursue a criminal investigation against Kolender.

Prosecutors reviewed the allegations against Kolender and his assistants and found no “criminal intent” in the dismissal of the citations, Casey said.

A review of the allegations by the district attorney was requested by City Manager John Lockwood, who issued a written reprimand to Kolender for dismissing the tickets and for using a Police Department employee to run personal errands.