State High Court Coming to O.C.

The California Supreme Court will hold an unusual hearing this week in Orange County regarding a Santa Ana case that will determine how much information criminal defendants learn about the police officers who testify against them.

The case has generated strong interest from police agencies concerned about officers’ privacy rights and defense lawyers who say reviewing officers’ personnel files and other records is essential to a fair trial.

The debate has intensified since the Rampart corruption scandal, in which Los Angeles police officers framed suspects and lied on the witness stand, causing some defendants to be convicted and imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit.

Public defenders and defense attorneys will argue before the high court that finding out more about an officer’s record of misconduct is essential for defendants to fairly confront their accusers, whose testimony is often given hefty weight by juries.

“The policeman comes to the stand with an aura about him, with a tremendous amount of credibility,” said Michael Giannini, head of Orange County’s Alternate Defenders Office. “If that police officer has made a mistake or outright lied, we have to know about it.”

But police departments and some prosecutors worry that turning over extensive personnel files will give defense attorneys more ammunition to put officers on trial rather than defendants.

“There’s all sorts of information in there that is of a highly sensitive nature that has nothing to do with, ‘Is he truthful?’ or ‘Did he ever beat people up?’ ” said Gary Schons, a supervising lawyer at the state attorney general’s San Diego office.

Under current state law, judges can review parts of police personnel records to determine whether any allegations of misconduct should be shared with defense lawyers. But several recent cases have have led defense lawyers to question whether police are hiding important information from judges.

The justices will hear oral arguments beginning Thursday at the Old Orange County Courthouse, which is marking its 100th birthday. The “field trip” is considered rare for the court, which hears cases primarily in San Francisco with occasional visits to Sacramento and Los Angeles.

Part of File Kept From Judge

The historic red stone courthouse can seat just 60, but the hearing will be broadcast on closed-circuit television to the Board of Supervisors chambers for others to watch.

The hearing will center on whether the city of Santa Ana acted improperly when it withheld part of a jail guard’s personnel file from a judge in 1998.

The case involves an inmate accused--and later convicted--of assaulting the officer. In a scathing review of that case, an Orange County appeals court criticized the Santa Ana city attorney’s office for providing the trial judge only a few papers from the officer’s file.

Consequently, the court reversed the inmate’s assault conviction, saying he had been deprived of a fair trial.

Also, a review by The Times last year found numerous instances in which Los Angeles police and prosecutors failed to alert defendants of past allegations of misconduct against officers.

One case involved a Los Angeles man convicted in 1997 on charges of selling cocaine. Jurors were never told that the officer testifying had been relieved of duty and was facing drug allegations of his own. He eventually was fired for drug use. When the officer’s record became public, the judge threw out the defendant’s drug sale conviction.

The Supreme Court must now decide whether police agencies must hand over an officer’s entire file whenever a judge wants to review his or her record--or merely information deemed relevant to the case.

One defense attorney said a judge should review all records and not leave it to police to decide what is relevant.

“You can’t have confidence in [police departments’] decisions as to what is relevant and what’s not. You’ve got to have judges making that call,” said Santa Clara University law professor Gerald Uelmen. “It’s like putting the rabbit in charge of the lettuce patch.”

Police and city officials note that officers are subject to far greater scrutiny by employers than the average worker, and that data not directly related to a criminal trial don’t have a place in the courtroom.

If all personnel files are open for court review, they said, it could prompt police departments to reduce the amount of information they compile on officers.

“If a defense attorney finds out that an officer has a foot fetish, even though it has nothing to do with the case, and that information gets out and makes it harder to prosecute a case, departments will do less screening,” said Paul Valle-Riestra, a Walnut Creek city attorney who wrote a Supreme Court brief on the case.

Compromise Has Been Elusive

Finding a way to satisfy both sides has been difficult. Lawyers at the San Diego County Public Defenders Office thought they had a solution.

They started a file on all police officers accused of misconduct to make it easier to confront them when they testified against their clients.

But an appeals court earlier this year raised questions about the practice. And eight San Diego police officers associations filed suit against the office, seeking to review the files under state public record laws.

Numerous entities have filed briefs in the case, including about 20 law enforcement agencies. Police are asking that the court keep the status quo and require departments to hand over only records narrowly related to what a judge requests.

On the other end of the spectrum, the California Public Defenders Assn. wants prosecutors to review all the personnel records of police officers who take the stand and to tell the defense about any information of importance.

“This is a fundamental and profound issue,” Los Angeles County Public Defender Michael Judge said. “Records are systematically and secretly sanitized. . . . If information is withheld from the court, how can you hope to have a fair system?”