Bill on Legal Aid for Gang Defendants Is Rejected

Citing the potentially heavy cost to local taxpayers, the state Senate on Thursday rejected a bill by Sen. Tom Hayden that would have provided public defenders for indigent defendants named as targets in anti-gang injunction cases.

The bill, which the Los Angeles Democrat has said was inspired by revelations of tainted evidence and police perjury in the expanding corruption scandal centered in the LAPD’s Rampart Division, failed on a bipartisan vote.

Although the measure, SB 167, remains technically alive, Hayden said he plans to return to the issue in another bill.

Indigent defendants in criminal cases are routinely provided with legal counsel at public expense. But defendants in civil cases, including those involving anti-gang injunctions, are not entitled to such representation.

Hayden maintains that anti-gang injunctions, a favorite tool of law enforcement in trying to curb illegal gang activity, are civil cases in name only. He contends that the vast power of police and prosecutors is brought to bear on indigents who cannot properly defend themselves because they cannot afford lawyers.

Opponents, including the California District Attorneys Assn., have said that the potential costs of providing accused gang members with public defenders or other taxpayer-financed representation in injunction cases could run into millions of dollars.

“There are enormous potential costs mandated on local government,” said Republican floor leader Ross Johnson of Irvine.

Hayden did not dispute the assessment, but argued that denying defendants legal representation that may protect their rights can be costly as well.

“Millions and millions of dollars are being lost in this [Rampart] scandal because people didn’t have a legal defense,” he said. “Prosecutors don’t like to acknowledge that, but that is a fact.”