Judge Orders Transcripts in Police Shooting Released

A Los Angeles federal judge has issued an unusual decision, ordering disclosure of grand jury transcripts to plaintiffs in a civil rights case brought against the LAPD’s controversial Special Investigations Section.

U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts issued the order in response to a motion filed by Venice civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman after reviewing the grand jury transcripts in his chambers.

Yagman contended that he needed to see the transcripts to determine if there were discrepancies between what SIS officers said in public testimony in an earlier civil rights case against them and what they told a federal grand jury behind closed doors. “I had the suspicion that [the officers] had said things under oath that were inconsistent with one another,” Yagman said.

The U.S. attorney’s office declined to lodge criminal charges against any of the officers after an investigation that concluded in 1995.

The elite SIS unit has been criticized for trailing suspects and watching them commit violent crimes before stepping in to arrest them.

Letts said in his order, made public Tuesday, that “disclosure of the transcripts is necessary to avoid possible injustice” in several pending cases that Yagman has filed against SIS officers. “The need for disclosure is greater than the need for continued secrecy.”

Letts added that he had “ascertained that there is a substantial likelihood that the grand jury transcripts contain testimony that will be admissible at trial to prove [the officers’] course of conduct and for impeachment purposes.”

The judge said he did not have access to the information that Yagman has to evaluate the particular portions of the testimony that may be relevant. He stressed that “there is no interest, however, in maintaining the secrecy of such inconsistencies and the transcripts are relevant.” Letts cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision that provides guidelines on when normally secret grand jury transcripts should be made available to parties in a civil case.

Additionally, Letts said all of the transcripts should be turned over to Yagman under seal because, the judge concluded, it would not be in the interest of justice to provide only limited portions.

Both the Los Angeles city attorney’s office and the U.S. attorney’s office opposed the transcripts’ release.

Attorney Skip Miller, who is representing some city officials, said he is “evaluating and studying” the judge’s ruling, but declined further comment.

“It’s clear from Judge Lett’s past rulings that he is biased against the SIS,” said one City Hall official.

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Letts’ order emphasizes that the parties “shall not disclose information from any portion of the grand jury transcript to any third party to this proceeding, including the media.” He said that anyone failing to comply with the order would be subject to a contempt of court proceeding.

Earlier this year, Letts issued another unusual ruling in the SIS cases, ordering a large number of public officials, including the mayor and the entire City Council, to appear in his courtroom to participate in a settlement conference. He later withdrew that order.

Loyola University law professor Laurie Levenson said Letts’ order was unusual, although not unprecedented. “I have had cases where a court-ordered release of grand jury transcripts that related to a civil proceeding,” said Levenson, a former federal prosecutor.

But she added that the cases “where I’ve had it happen didn’t involve impeachment. Witnesses were no longer available.”

“Ordinarily [criminal] grand jury transcripts are not used in civil proceedings,” Levenson said. “The law requires a particularized need such as unavailability of evidence from another source and the importance of the evidence to the civil proceeding, balanced against the reasons for continued secrecy. That includes everything from embarrassment to the witnesses to the disruption of ongoing investigations. It’s more likely that the court would permit disclosure once the criminal matter is concluded,” as is the case here, Levenson said.

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She said what makes Letts’ order even more unusual is its breadth, referring to the fact that the judge ordered the entire transcript released to Yagman.

Yagman said the decision arose from the Feb. 12, 1990, robbery of a fast-food restaurant in Sunland, after which SIS officers shot and killed three men and seriously wounded a fourth man.

In March 1992, in a trial before Letts, a federal jury ruled that the officers had violated the gunmen’s civil rights. The jury awarded punitive damages against eight officers and then-Police Chief Daryl Gates.

Subsequently, the U.S. attorney’s office conducted its own investigation of the SIS officers but did not file charges.

Yagman said that during a pending civil rights case against the same officers “it dawned on me that the grand jury proceedings” might show inconsistencies between the officers’ statement in the federal probe and in the civil trial. So he filed the motion that led to the ruling.

Yagman has five lawsuits pending against SIS officers, which Letts has consolidated into one case.