Shredded Heat

• Author: Lorelei Laird
• Pages: 18-19

Families of victim s and survi-

vors of mass shootings are elig i-

ble to receive crime vic tim funds

from the government for funeral

expenses and medic al bills, and the

public often donates large sum s

that provide nonearmarked money

for whatever the person wants.

For example, some people

impacted by Charles ton’s shoot-

ing have launched nonprofi t foun-

dations that assist low-income

children with ac cess to literacy or

sports activ ities. Pro bono law-

yers help their clients access t hese

funds. Some public donation funds

happen through crowdfund ing

websites. Sometimes cities or ot her

entities partner w ith banks to han-

dle the donation collections.

In Santa Fe, Brown, who

coordinated the Houston Bar

Association’s response, explai ns

that some survivors were on

Medicaid, which has st rict income

eligibility requir ements, and they

feared that acc epting the donation

funds would disqual ify them.

Pro bono lawyers create d special

needs trusts t o accept the funds

without disqualif ying their clients

from their health ca re.

One of the Las Vegas funds gar -

nered $31.4 million, and it was

disbursed in March 2018 to 532

claimants who receive d funds

ranging from $17,500 to $275,000

each, commensurate w ith their

level of injury, according to CN N.

With such large checks c oming,

Miller says she and her colleagues

worried about scammers. T hey

coordinated w ith a professor at the

University of Nevada-Las Vegas

William S. Boyd School of L aw

to launch a network of pro bono

fi nancia l advisers for their clients.

Miller says that every loc al bar

must create a plan to respond to a

mass shooting.

“When something like thi s hap-

pens, it’s unexpected, a nd all of

a sudden, you’re faced with—not

only the emotions hit—but having

to jump in action to ass ist people,”

she says.

“If you have some structure, even

if it’s bare bones, that would be

wonderful .” ■

The Docket

18 || ABA JOURNAL MARCH 2019

Shredded Heat

California is relaxing one of the nation’s most

restrictive laws on police personnel records

By Lorelei Laird

In 1976, the Los

Angeles Police Depart-

ment shredded four

tons of citizen com-

plaints against t he po-

lice with “the spec ifi c intent,” a judge

said, “of depriving crimi nal defense

attorneys of potentia l evidence to

which they were legally entitled.”

Remarking on the destr uction

of those documents, Los A ngeles

Municipal Court Judge George

Trammell said that such behavior

“should shock the conscience.” His

comments came before he dismis sed

misdemeanor charges aga inst mul-

tiple defendants who had requested

such records.

The shredding of citizen com-

plaints was in rea ction to a 1974

California Supreme Cour t ruling

that crimina l defendants had a right

to discovery of docu ments show-

ing a history of police mi sconduct.

Law enforcement had fought the

case bitterly and wa s not pleased by

the fl ood of disc overy requests that

resulted. The city at torney’s o ce,

which prosecutes misdemea nors in

Los Angeles, had t herefore advised

the LAPD to get r id of the evidence,

citing low morale at the department.

Judges like Trammell were dismiss-

ing a ect ed cases as a sanction.

By 1978, both the shredding and

the dismissals were b ecoming local

scandals. So t he California legis-

lature clamped down t hat year on

access to police per sonnel records,

with a bill expres sly intended to

limit discovery a nd stop what the

attorney general’s o ce—which

drafted t he bill—characterized as

“fi shing ex peditions” and harass-

ment of o cers. For the past four

decades, releases h ave been up to a

judge’s discretion and so strictly l im-

ited that even prosecutors have ha d

trouble getting information.

E ective Jan. 1, t hat changed. A

new California law, SB 1421, makes

certain police p ersonnel records

available through Cali fornia’s pub-

lic records law—not just to defense

lawyers or prosecutors, but to a ny-

one who asks. The information avai l-

able is limited to speci fi c kinds of

misconduct and will b e scrubbed

of most personal informat ion. But

some police misconduct lawyers st ill

see it as a win.

“You’ll get them sooner [rather]

than later, and I think impor tantly

so, even if no lawsuit has been fi led,”

says John L. Burris, a civ il rights

lawyer in Oakl and, California. “And

it’s in the public interest. So I think

it’s important.”

A ‘CAREFUL BALANCIN G’

Under the 1978 law, anyone who

wants information on police mi s-

conduct must ask a judge through

what’s called a Pitchess motion,

named for Peter Pitchess, the Lo s

Angeles County sheri who fought

the personnel records ca se up to the

California Supreme Cour t. That pro-

cess allows par ties seeking informa-

tion to request personnel records or

records involving exces sive force,

dishonesty, theft or general “moral

turpitude.”

Judges decide not only whether

to release the records , but also what

specifi c in formation from those

records is relevant enough to relea se.

To do that, they examine the mate-

rial in chamber s, accompanied only

by someone from the police agency

and their designees. Any thing

released is limite d to the fi ve years

prior to the alleged cri me or police

misconduct incident at the center of

the case. The records c an’t be made

public, used outside of that court

National

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