Supervisors Vote for Panel to Review Sheriff’s Dept. : Law enforcement: Retired judges will monitor complaints. Critics want a more powerful civilian board.

Reacting to the investigation last summer that found excessive use of force and lax discipline in the Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to institute outside review of the department under a compromise reached by Sheriff Sherman Block and James G. Kolts, the retired judge who led the inquiry.

It is the first time the department’s policies and activities will be subject to continual outside review, although the agreement falls well short of the full civilian review board that had been demanded by a coalition of minority groups and the ACLU.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said the vote represented “a very historic agreement,” adding that the review--which will be conducted in part by a panel of retired judges--was the best that could be achieved at this time.

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who authored the resolution that initiated the Kolts investigation, acknowledged that there “may be imperfections in what we’re doing, but this is a significant step forward.”

But representatives of the Coalition for Sheriff’s Accountability, made up of minority groups and the American Civil Liberties Union, said they were disappointed and concerned by the outcome.

“There is nothing civilian about this review,” said Gloria J. Romero, a member of the coalition and director of a Ford Foundation-supported Police-Community Studies Project at Cal State L.A. “It is a facade.”

Allan Parachini of the ACLU predicted that even after the reforms, “the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department will still be the only local law enforcement agency without real review.”

The procedure approved by the supervisors encompasses three separate layers of review:

* An ombudsman, named by the board in consultation with Block, will have the job of ensuring that citizens’ complaints “are investigated in a timely fashion” and that the complaining parties are informed of the investigation’s progress.

* A panel of retired judges “reflective of the diversity of county population and mutually acceptable to the sheriff and the board” will review records in connection with the adjudication of a citizen’s complaint when it is denied and the citizen requests a review.

* Although Kolts is relinquishing his role as head of the group that conducted the inquiry, Merrick Bobb, the general counsel of the Kolts investigatory staff, will be retained by the board at $200 an hour. He will monitor the department’s compliance with the 180 recommendations made by Kolts. Bobb will conduct audits every six months for the next three years, beginning July 1, and report to the supervisors.

In addition to the formal review process, “community conference” committees will be established at sheriff’s stations to allow residents to express their views to station captains.

Some communities in California go beyond the review process approved in Los Angeles County to include broad citizen representation on the review panels. For instance, San Diego County, with the sheriff’s consent, established a full civilian panel with some investigatory authority.

Block has consistently opposed civilians on the panel and the majority of the supervisors have been reluctant to overrule him. Last month, the county counsel issued an opinion that the supervisors do not have the authority to impose a review process without Block’s consent.

On Tuesday, Block defended the use of a judicial panel to review his department, saying, “Judges don’t have an agenda. They are capable of impartiality.”

The compromise adopted by the board was immediately the subject of different interpretations.

Block emphasized that the ombudsman, the retired judges and Bobb can raise questions about his actions, but cannot order him to act or reverse any of his decisions.

He also stressed that the retired judges are authorized only to review the records of the department’s investigations of complaints and not initiate their own investigations or contact those involved in the cases. On another point, Block said the ombudsman will not have a staff.

Bobb and Molina, however, said they believe the review process will develop over time, and Bobb suggested that Block eventually may allow the retired judges and the ombudsman wider authority.

As for his semiannual monitoring of departmental progress, Bobb said he will not be hampered by the lack of a paid staff. He said that he will use many of the 60 unpaid volunteers who helped Kolts in last year’s investigation and that he foresees taking an extensive look at how the Sheriff’s Department is doing.

Members of the coalition who criticized the agreement said they were most concerned that the judicial panel appointed to conduct the reviews would not be representative of the community at large. They noted that few retired judges in the county are women or members of minority groups, and they expressed fear that most of the judges on the panel would be elitists with little understanding of people mistreated by sheriff’s deputies.

Nonetheless, Romero said the coalition would be prepared to work toward expanding the opportunities for review established by Tuesday’s action.

Although she voted for the compromise, Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said it was “a terrible mistake” to restrict membership to a judicial group traditionally dominated by elderly white men. Edelman, however, said the issue “is not whether you’re Anglo or old; the question is whether someone will bring experience, objectivity, fairness and honesty” to these posts.

Edelman and other supporters quickly assured Burke that they could find African-Americans, Latinos and women for the panel by expanding the list of retired judges to include Municipal Court judges, court commissioners, administrative court judges and public hearing officers.