D.A. to Seek Discipline Files of Police

Staking out new duties for prosecutors, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley decided Monday that his office will take the lead role in obtaining the disciplinary records of police officers who are scheduled to testify in criminal cases.

The new policy calls for creation of a computer databank with information that might cast doubt on an officer’s credibility. Cooley’s “special directive” issued Monday requires prosecutors who become suspicious to formally request a review of any officer’s personnel files.

When officers with a history of misconduct are needed in court, Cooley directed his prosecutors to ask judges to decide what information will be disclosed to the defense.

“There’s a good deal of interest throughout California in what L.A. County is doing” because few other counties have such policies or databanks, said Larry Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn.

The Santa Barbara district attorney’s office has established a databank, but police representatives have sued, claiming it violates their privacy.

Reaction from defense lawyers ranged from praise to strong denunciation.

“They’re knuckling under to the police union,” said Deputy Public Defender Mark Harvis, referring to the union’s traditional resistance to opening up police personnel files. “The databank is not a big breakthrough ... because the amount of information in it will be so limited and very restrictive.”

Defense lawyer Gigi Gordon said the policy “does not go far enough,” but she said she is still impressed.

“I think it’s revolutionary that they did anything,” Gordon said.

A top LAPD officer called it a positive step.

The policy seeks to quiet long-running disputes between the district attorney’s office and defense lawyers over what information prosecutors must turn over under state and federal laws that require prosecutors to reveal information that may help the defendant.

Going back to the 1991 Christopher Commission report, which addressed LAPD problems after the beating of Rodney King, police have resisted efforts to reveal disciplinary histories, while civil libertarians have generally called for greater disclosure.

More recently, authorities determined that part of the disciplinary record of Rafael Perez, the convicted drug thief at the center of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart controversy, had not been disclosed and was not used to impeach him when he testified in cases before the scandal.

Would Not Have Prevented Rampart

Erwin Chemerinsky, a USC law professor, said the new policy would not have prevented the Rampart Division scandal. Officers were caught lying in court, planting evidence and committing other misdeeds in Rampart’s anti-gang unit.

“It might have helped expose Rampart sooner by bringing to light

Cooley’s predecessor, Gil Garcetti, proposed a databank during his last few months in office, prompting a lawsuit by the Police Protective League that claimed it violated police privacy.

Cooley killed Garcetti’s databank idea shortly after he took office in December 2000, and formed a committee of prosecutors, police officers and a representative of defense lawyers, including Gordon, to devise the new policy. Gordon dropped off that committee several months ago.

In California, the onus is on defense lawyers to seek information from an officer’s personnel file if they suspect those records contain information that would raise questions about the officer’s credibility. In such cases, the Police Department is required to submit the personnel file to the judge, who reviews it and determines what information should be disclosed.

Under Cooley’s policy, the judge will still do that.

But prosecutors will take a lead role, although they will not be allowed to rummage through police personnel files.

Whenever prosecutors suspect a police witness’ personnel file may contain information that could help the defendant, they formally request the police agency to search the officers’ records for such material. If the agency finds data helpful to the defense, prosecutors will be required to file a formal motion in court asking that the police agency be ordered to provide the file for review by a judge.

LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Bostic called the policy “a step in the right direction.” But he said it leaves some questions unanswered, and may raise others.

The LAPD has some 9,000 officers, and their personnel records are kept confidential. So it’s unclear how prosecutors would know when they needed to seek additional information, Bostic said.

The department has restricted the duties of officers whose court testimony might be vulnerable to challenges. The officers affected were chiefly those with disciplinary histories that involved perjury or falsification of documents. They were taken out of jobs that required them to make arrests, to ensure their disciplinary records did not jeopardize prosecutions. That policy has been highly controversial within the LAPD, and was criticized by the officers union. It is also the subject of an ongoing lawsuit against the department.

Cooley’s new directive also requires prosecutors to ask the judge to issue orders forbidding the defense from sharing any disclosed information with other lawyers, or use it in any other case.

Value of Information Limited, Attorney Says

Harvis, who is an appellate attorney for the public defender’s office, said that provision severely limits the value of the databank.

Moreover, he said, the databank will unnecessarily exclude most complaints filed against an officer unless the evidence in the complaint meets an extremely high standard of proof.

Under the new policy, disciplinary information will not be used unless the police agency or the district attorney’s office determines the evidence against the officer is “clear and convincing,” a legal standard just below the reasonable doubt guideline juries must use in determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant in a trial.

Harvis said most defense lawyers will not rely on Cooley’s directive because the policy allows prosecutors in many cases to decide when confidential information will be sought.

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Times staff writer Jill Leovy contributed to this report.