Vernon’s Suit on Religious Bias Rejected

Rejecting claims that top city officials had engaged in a “witch hunt,” a federal judge in Los Angeles on Wednesday threw out Assistant Police Chief Robert Vernon’s lawsuit alleging that he was the victim of religious discrimination.

U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson ruled in a detailed, 42-page opinion that Vernon, a church elder, failed to demonstrate that a Police Department investigation violated his religious freedom.

Unless successfully appealed, the ruling ends Vernon’s legal claim that his career was sabotaged by the investigation, which was intended to determine whether his fundamentalist Christian beliefs conflicted with his official police duties.

In issuing the ruling, Wilson said Vernon, 58, had “failed to identify a single case in which an investigation of the kind conducted by” the Police Department violated the constitutional provision guaranteeing separation of church and state.

Moreover, Wilson wrote, Vernon “has not alleged, let alone offered any evidence showing that the investigation ‘interfered with a tenet or belief that is central to (the) religious doctrine’ of Christian fundamentalism.”

A spokesman for Vernon said he was away from the office and unavailable for comment. His attorney, David Casterline, called Wilson’s decision unfortunate and said he expects to appeal.

“We knew from day one that this case might not survive the district court,” Casterline said. “It is a unique case. There really isn’t any precedent for it.

Police Commission President Stanley K. Sheinbaum, who helped launch the investigation and was a defendant in the suit, said he was pleased with the decision. “I never felt that Chief Vernon had a case to start with,” Sheinbaum said.

“No one even hinted that his beliefs should be looked into. The only concern was that he might have allowed those beliefs to interfere with his official duties.”

Two weeks ago, Wilson dismissed part of the case but ruled that Vernon, a long-time elder at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, would get a trial on the separation of church and state issue. The trial was scheduled to begin March 17, but at a hearing Monday, Wilson indicated skepticism over some of Vernon’s assertions and apparently decided in the intervening 48 hours that the case had no merit.

Early last month, several high-ranking officers of the department filed sworn declarations asserting in detail how Vernon had improperly injected his religious views into Police Department business. Vernon immediately denied the charges and his lawyers subsequently submitted affidavits from other police officers meant to rebut the charges.

Vernon also maintained that Assistant Chief Donald Dotson and Deputy Chiefs Glenn Levant and Bernard Parks had submitted their declarations in an attempt to hurt his chances and advance their own in the battle to succeed Chief Daryl F. Gates, who has announced he will retire in June.

Skip Miller, the city’s special counsel on the case, replied that Vernon was attempting to use the lawsuit as part of his campaign to become chief. Earlier this month, a special committee that is screening candidates to succeed Gates announced that Vernon was not among the six finalists but that the other three were.

The events leading up to Vernon’s suit began May 25, when Sheinbaum questioned in a public statement whether Vernon’s views “were having an impermissible effect on his on-duty performance.”

Then, on June 3, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, acting on reports suggesting the possibility of improper official conduct by Vernon, sent a letter to Melanie Lomax, then the Police Commission’s acting president, requesting an investigation.

The judge noted that Yaroslavsky’s letter stressed that Vernon is “entitled to his personal religious and political views.”

But Yaroslavsky’s letter added: “However, when one’s views interfere with one’s ability to perform official duties fairly and without bias, it is no longer a personal matter, but a matter of public policy.

“Allegations concerning promotion, hiring and treatment of gays and lesbians, and most recently the consultation of religious elders on issues of public policy, deserve to be reviewed. If the allegations have merit, then they should be addressed and the problems corrected. If they are without merit, then they should be laid to rest at once,” Yaroslavsky wrote.

In explaining his decision, Wilson wrote that Yaroslavsky was prompted to act by several other allegations that had been brought to his attention. These included charges that Vernon had conducted a secret, unauthorized investigation of Gates’ off-duty activities, saying, “God wants me to be chief.”

The investigation, ordered by the Police Commission June 4, was to explore issues of promotions, hiring and treatment of gays, lesbians and women, alleged preferential treatment of Vernon’s religious sympathizers and Vernon’s alleged consultation with church elders on police policy issues.

A letter from then-Police Commission President Lomax to Gates stressed that “it is not the intention of this board to abridge the 1st Amendment rights of Chief Vernon or anyone else, as each member of this commission would vigorously protect and defend those rights. The board wishes only to ensure that Chief Vernon’s personal beliefs have not created any adverse impact on any job-related matters and that he has not violated any department policies or procedures.”

Vernon immediately branded the investigation a witch hunt.

Gates told the commission on Nov. 26 that Cmdr. George Morrison, who conducted the inquiry, had been unable to corroborate any of the charges and no action was taken against Vernon.

Wilson noted in his decision a court declaration by Gates that the investigation focused entirely on Vernon’s on-duty conduct and no inquiry was ever made into Vernon’s beliefs.

The judge also said it would be “unreasonable to infer a message of disapproval of Christian fundamentalism” from the actions of Yaroslavsky, Sheinbaum and Lomax that lead up to the investigation. He said none of the actions suggested that the defendants “would have treated allegations of wrongdoing on the part of any high-level official who was Muslim, Hindu, Catholic or Jewish any differently.”

Although Wilson did not pass judgment on Vernon’s conduct, he said the investigation served a compelling government interest--seeking to protect civil and religious liberties, ensuring compliance with Police Department policies and procedures and “above all, (avoiding) the appearance of the establishment by the government of Christian fundamentalism.”

Wilson dismissed Vernon’s contention that there were inadequate grounds for launching the investigation. The judge concluded “that where so many allegations are made by a host of different people concerning so vital and urgent an issue . . . there is a compelling government interest in launching an inquiry to determine whether the allegations can be substantiated, even if some of the allegations are not well substantiated prior to the investigation.”

In summary, the judge said Vernon had failed to show the investigation violated the standards set down in a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court decision on separation of church and state. The judge said the investigation had a valid secular purpose, did not have a primary effect of advancing or inhibiting religion and did not result in excessive entanglement of government with religion.

Miller, the city’s special counsel, said: “I’m very happy that the city treasury will not be hit for the $10 million that Bob Vernon was seeking. I’m pleased to see that the right of city government to investigate serious charges of wrongdoing within the Police Department has been upheld.

“I think that the city must be able to investigate, to protect the rights of its own employees and the public.”