Sheriff Takes Dramatic Step for Closer Civilian Oversight

In a dramatic break from the practices of most law enforcement agencies, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca expects to revamp his internal affairs division by adding six civilian attorneys and a panel of retired judges to add credibility and independence to internal investigations.

The Board of Supervisors is poised to approve Baca’s plan for an Office of Independent Review at its meeting today. In interviews, some supervisors were enthusiastic in their praise of Baca’s proposal. Zev Yaroslavsky called it “historic, precedent-setting” and likened it to the Emancipation Proclamation.

If it is adopted by the supervisors, the Sheriff’s Department would become the largest law enforcement agency in the country with civilians actively involved at all levels of internal investigations. Police departments in Chicago and San Francisco have some forms of civilian oversight but nothing exactly like the system Baca is proposing.

By offering such a plan, Baca is advancing his view of reform and at the same time deflecting critics who have long argued that police cannot police themselves. He also is charting a course for the Sheriff’s Department that is vastly different from the one being pursued by Los Angeles’ more embattled law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Police Department.

The LAPD, which has faced a drumbeat of criticism arising from the Rampart police corruption scandal, in recent months has been confronted with renewed calls for more civilian oversight, an issue that has dogged that department at least since 1991, the year that several police officers beat Rodney G. King. Despite those calls and the looming threat of a lawsuit by the federal government, LAPD officials have never gone as far as Baca proposes that his agency go, and instead point to the department’s five-member civilian Police Commission and inspector general as an appropriate way for civilians to oversee police officers.

But Baca’s proposal embraces a new notion of civilian involvement: He is proposing to add attorneys with civil rights expertise at various levels of the Sheriff’s Department’s Internal Affairs Division. In other words, Baca seeks to influence internal investigations from the bottom up. Under his plan, civilians would have unfettered access to, among other things, internal documents, other records and even witnesses.

Baca is proposing one chief attorney overseeing five others, three of whom would work in conjunction with sheriff’s investigators.

“Having Office of Independent Review attorneys at the line level will give these investigations and reports added strength . . . particularly to withstand the scrutiny that will occur at the top,” Baca said in an interview. “I want my people to know that the investigations they are doing are going to be accompanied by additional insight and observations by these individuals.”

The department now has two tracks for internal investigations: the Office of Internal Affairs, which generally handles allegations of administrative but not necessarily criminal misconduct; and the Office of Internal Criminal Investigations, which primarily handles accusations of corruption and other potential criminal wrongdoing by deputies.

Under the new system, that separation would remain. Baca’s new unit, the Office of Independent Review, would supervise both those entities and make recommendations to the sheriff about which deputies should be prosecuted or disciplined.

Consulted Leaders of Rights Groups

To ensure the success of his plan, Baca has met several times with leaders of local civil rights groups, many of whom have sued the department over the years over claims of discrimination, harassment and other issues. Baca also relied heavily on the advice of Merrick J. Bobb, a national expert on police reform who monitors the Sheriff’s Department for the Board of Supervisors.

Bobb and several leaders of civil rights groups said they believe that Baca’s plan is innovative--some said groundbreaking--but that they want assurances the reviews will indeed be independent from the Sheriff’s Department.

To that end, they want to ensure that the selection process for these attorneys remains out of the hands of the sheriff and that members of the civil rights community participate in the hiring.

“My support of this proposal hinges directly on the degree to which this office is selected independently and can function independently,” Bobb said. “I believe that representatives of principal civil rights organizations will make up at least half of the selection committee and that would be a welcome sign.”

Kathay Feng, the program director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California; Paula D. Pearlman, the supervising attorney of the California Women’s Law Center; and Erica Teasley, the western regional counsel of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund, all of whom participated in meetings with the sheriff, echoed Bobb’s concerns, saying the hiring must be above reproach.

As Feng put it, the selection should not be “one where the person selected is selected merely to be a political figurehead or somebody who does not have as his first priority revamping internal affairs and protecting good officers who want to come forward.”

At Baca’s request, County Counsel Lloyd Pellman reviewed the proposal and has recommended that the supervisors approve a hiring process that includes the participation of Bobb as well as members of the civil rights community. Pellman said he and Baca have agreed that neither the sheriff nor anyone else in the department will be involved in the selection of these attorneys. The Board of Supervisors would have the final say over hiring, Pellman said.

Still, Baca has some ideas about the types of attorneys he would envision in these jobs: those with strong civil rights backgrounds and those whose “maturity, wisdom and character” are unquestionable.

A panel of retired judges would be created to review some of the department’s internal investigations. It would report to the Board of Supervisors and could be hired in a similar manner, Pellman said.

Aside from the hiring process, another potential sticking point could be the budget for the new office. Baca seeks $1.07 million in addition to his departmental budget. In large part, Baca says, he wants the supervisors to allocate the budget separately from that of the department as another measure of its independence.

If the plan is approved, the chief attorney of the new office would be paid about $212,000 a year. The two assistants overseeing the two arms of the department’s internal affairs and internal criminal investigations would make $188,537 each, and the three lower-ranking lawyers would be paid $159,436 a year. The attorneys would be given three-year contracts but would not be considered county employees.

Although some supervisors have raised eyebrows at the sheriff’s budget request, others--including those who have been extremely critical of Baca’s fiscal sense in the past--say they will help him fund the program.

“One million dollars in a budget of one billion is not the issue,” Yaroslavsky said. “I don’t think it does the proposal justice to dwell on the budget. . . . Here’s a chance to show whether we can police ourselves or not. For a sheriff of a county this size to make that kind of leap is unprecedented in the history of law enforcement. It’s akin to the Emancipation Proclamation. It’s a huge change.”

Supervisor Don Knabe, albeit with fewer superlatives, said he too would like to help Baca make his plan a reality. Above all, Knabe said, he is pleased that the sheriff is moving ahead.

“I really like that he is getting out ahead of this, instead of saying, ‘No, we don’t need this, we’re doing fine.’ ”

Although the attorneys would influence internal investigations and the chief attorney would be involved in recommending discipline for sheriff’s deputies, Baca would retain the final say on punishment. The sheriff said that he would weigh heavily the recommendations of the Office of Independent Review but that he should remain ultimately accountable for discipline in the department.

In that respect, his proposal resembles the system at the LAPD, where Chief Bernard C. Parks has the last word on discipline. Parks and some department critics have endorsed that system because, they say, it allows outsiders to hold the chief accountable for effective use of the disciplinary system.

Several civil rights attorneys and others said they are eager to see whether the sheriff would overturn disciplinary recommendations by attorneys of the Office of Independent Review.

“The sheriff does keep that power,” said Teasley, of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “I would say that is a main concern.”

‘In Principle We’re Very Excited’

Overall, however, these civil rights and community group leaders, who typically are more accustomed to being adversaries of law enforcement agencies, said they are hopeful about Baca’s plan.

“In principle, we’re very excited about it,” said Pearlman, of the California Women’s Law Center. “We’re very excited with the way it is designed.”

Baca said he was moved to make the proposal by the LAPD’s Rampart corruption scandal, in which officers assigned to an anti-gang unit are alleged to have shot and framed suspects and perjured themselves, among other things. Scores of convictions have been overturned as a result.

Baca said he also is considering a new method for dealing with lower-level violations by deputies in yet another attempt to stem problems before they become crises.

“I want to make a big deal out of the little things,” Baca said.

Under his new plan, which he said he still is formulating, such violations as tardiness or failing to qualify at the shooting range would automatically result in increased supervision and more training for deputies--rather than initiating time-consuming investigations. That approach, Baca said, is aimed at better tracking of problem deputies as well as reducing the time taken for investigating such violations.

Baca said he will discuss the proposal with the deputies’ union, Bobb and others. But first, he said, he wants to launch the Office of Independent Review.

“I’m very optimistic about it,” Baca said. “It’s time to do this.”