ACLU Lawsuit Charges Riot Curfew Was Illegal

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a suit Tuesday challenging the legality of the curfew imposed during the recent Los Angeles riots, complaining that it was confusing and unfairly enforced against Latinos and the homeless.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, maintains that Mayor Tom Bradley’s original announcement of the emergency measure “suggested that compliance with the curfew was voluntary” and that it put the homeless in an impossible situation because “they lacked the ability to comply.”

Latinos also were swept up in large numbers in part because “the terms of the curfew were not published in Spanish-language newspapers,” the ACLU said.

The suit was brought as the civil liberties group released a 49-page critique of the criminal justice system’s handling of the riots based on an analysis of thousands of cases filed during the unrest.

The study alleged, among other things, that local law enforcement agencies used the unrest as an opportunity to turn over illegal immigrants to immigration authorities and asserted that assembly line processing of riot suspects led to “a loss of individual justice for a large number of people,” hundreds of whom were pressured to plead guilty.

The criticism of curfew prosecutions--leveled in both the lawsuit and critique--drew an angry rebuke Tuesday from a top official of the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Maureen Siegel, acting chief of the criminal division for the office, said she met with an ACLU attorney and other defense representatives several weeks ago and invited them to point out cases of homeless people or others who may have been unfairly caught up in curfew sweeps.

“Essentially we said, ‘Look, if you can put together a list of individuals you feel were wrongly prosecuted . . . we will be happy to pull those cases and review them. If we agree with the fact, we will allow motions to withdraw the (guilty) plea. . . . We’re completely open wherever there has been a miscarriage of justice to correct it.”’

But out of several thousand curfew cases, Siegel said, “we’ve gotten only eight” cited by the defense groups. They are under review. Siegel said she views the ACLU criticism as “an attack on the integrity of all the deputies in the city attorney’s office. . . . I am personally and professionally offended.”

The suit is the second broad challenge to the curfew arrests.

The Los Angeles County public defenders office last month appealed several cases on the grounds that it should not have been a crime for someone merely to have been out after dark. Instead, the public defenders said, there should have been a showing that people on the streets had a clear criminal intent--perhaps by impeding police or firefighters--before they were arrested.

But those appeals have failed, and some already have been rejected by the California Supreme Court.

The ACLU suit takes a different tack in asking that the curfew be declared unconstitutional.

It maintains that the terms of the emergency order were unclear from the time Bradley signed it April 30. ACLU attorneys released transcripts of public comments by the mayor in which he said the curfew would give police a tool against “those who are out there improperly with some nefarious scheme in mind--to steal, to loot, to rob, to shoot. . . .”

Police would not be “trying to arrest everybody in town, not trying to prevent them from carrying on their normal lives,” Bradley added.

ACLU officials said such comments may have left people with the impression that they would not be risking arrest if they were outside after curfew for a legitimate reason.

One plaintiff in the suit, Elias Romero, 22, of Hollywood said he was arrested at 9:30 p.m. on May 1 while returning home from his janitorial job in Santa Monica.

“They would not accept my explanation,” he said.

Romero said that while he believed he had a good defense, he later pleaded guilty to violating the curfew law because the short sentences being offered in Municipal Court meant he would get out of jail almost immediately.

In its critique, the ACLU said Romero’s problem was not unusual, commenting that “the combination of excessive bail and the threat of harsh sentences . . . caused hundreds of people to plead guilty to misdemeanor offenses--virtually all curfew violations--to which they had obvious defenses.”

A spokesman for Bradley defended the curfew Tuesday. “It’s hard to imagine that anyone with a radio or television did not hear Tom Bradley urging the public to stay home,” press secretary Bill Chandler said.

“Despite what the ACLU may try to represent, the mayor’s message was clear. . . . ‘Stay off the streets.’ ”

The ACLU report acknowledged that the criminal justice system was under extraordinary pressure in the wake of the riots, and even noted that “some areas worked well.” But it called for “better planning in future emergencies” and made a series of recommendations, including:

* Establishment of an independent task force “to examine the criminal justice system’s response to the unrest.”

* Development of “realistic contingency plans for housing homeless people during emergencies.”

* Allowing those already sentenced for curfew violations to withdraw their pleas and adopting legislation to reduce curfew violations from a misdemeanor to an infraction.

One of the report’s most critical sections examined how local law enforcement agencies turned over hundreds of alleged illegal immigrants to the Immigration and Naturalization Service after they were arrested on suspicion of looting and violating the curfew.

The ACLU said that statistics obtained from the INS under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department turned over 1,090 suspects to federal agents between April 29 and May 20, while the Los Angeles Police Department delivered 452. Many of them agreed to be deported rather than face charges.

The Los Angeles Police Commission is investigating complaints that LAPD officers cooperated with the INS to seize immigrants in violation of a 1979 department policy that bars police from conducting investigations solely to determine immigration status.

“A growing body of evidence shows that police and federal agencies used the time of civil unrest to round up and deport people who they believed to be undocumented immigrants,” the ACLU said.

Local INS officials, however, said the ACLU figures included some illegal immigrants arrested in crimes unrelated to the riots. “Some were brought in for smuggling” other illegal immigrants, said John Brechtel, assistant district director of the INS.