Judge Orders Dozens of City Officials to Appear in Suit

In a highly unusual ruling, a federal judge has ordered dozens of Los Angeles city officials--including the mayor, the entire City Council and the police chief--to appear in court all on one day to discuss settling a civil rights lawsuit.

City officials said the ruling is certain to disrupt city government and police operations Oct. 20 when many of Los Angeles’ top policymakers, bureaucrats and police officers are scheduled to appear in court.

“This is indeed unusual,” said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. “With all the officials traipsing into the courtroom, it will get a little crowded.”

U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts made the order last week to determine whether a civil rights lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Investigation Section (SIS) could be settled without a trial.

In that lawsuit, the elite but controversial unit is accused of trying to kill a man whom they had followed and seen rob a liquor store in Newbury Park in 1995. The plaintiff, Robert Cunningham, was sentenced in April to life in prison without the possibility of parole for initiating the deadly gun battle. As a result of the shootout, Cunningham’s partner was killed and two officers were injured.

In addition to the police squad, the suit names the City Council, the police chief and a number of other city officials as defendants.

Letts, in his five-page ruling, said he felt compelled to require that the city officials appear in court because the defendants in the case objected to his plan to appoint two volunteer advisors to assist him in evaluating the case. The advisors were to have been USC professor Erwin Chemerinsky and attorney Timothy Coates.

“The court finds it disheartening that the defendants would reject the valuable services being offered without charge to the court,” Letts wrote in his order.

“One of the matters upon which the court had hoped to receive counsel from the advisors was whether it might be possible for representatives of the various party groups to appear at the settlement conference, rather than requiring each named party to appear,” Letts added.

Those scheduled to appear are: Mayor Richard Riordan, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, SIS officers, non-SIS officers, police commissioners, City Council members, lawyers with the city attorney’s office and the plaintiffs.

According to the order, the city officials will appear in “non-overlapping time segments, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing to 5 p.m.”

Several city officials said they were not pleased with the judge’s order, which they characterized as disruptive, but said they would comply. Because of the order, a Public Safety Committee meeting of the City Council will be canceled, city officials said.

“The mayor will honor the order to appear. However he is very distressed that this case is ongoing and the city is continuing to incur legal fees dues to the actions of a felon convicted of attempting to murder police officers,” said Noelia Rodriguez, the mayor’s spokeswoman. “He hopes his appearance will help dispose of this matter.”

Goldstein, the city attorney’s spokesman, said: “It does not seem necessary to bring all these parties into the judge’s courtroom to get an effective settlement conference, [but] we all will comply.”