Tue Jul 10, 2012, 06:58 PM
ACLU lawsuit against Sheriff and DA in Los Angeles County
Last edited Tue Jul 10, 2012, 06:59 PM USA/ET - Edit history (1)
Today, the ACLU of Southern California, the law firm Bird Marella, Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, and USC Law Professor Michael Brennan filed a major civil rights lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court challenging a secret program by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to conceal evidence of deputy assaults on Men’s Central Jail detainees from criminal defense counsel in cases where these deputies are sole or principal prosecution witnesses and a related operation by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office prohibiting disclosure of favorable evidence to criminal defendants, even though such evidence is deemed essential for disclosure by the United States and California Supreme Courts.
Potentially affecting verdicts and pleas in thousands of cases over the past decade, the suit, filed on behalf of local defense attorney Jeffrey Douglas, calls for immediate cessation of these practices undermining the conduct of fair trials in Los Angeles County. Because of the unprecedented scope of this scandal, the ACLU/SC also filed a complaint with the State Bar of California against District Attorney Steve Cooley, demanded the appointment of an independent counsel with sufficient staff to review all cases that have resulted in a guilty verdict or plea since these policies were adopted, and asked for a civil grand jury investigation of the illicit programs. “The policies of District Attorney Cooley and Sheriff Baca challenged in this lawsuit have for over a decade now corrupted LA criminal trials into truth-concealing perversions of justice: a system of injustice for all criminal defendants,” said Mark Rosenbaum, Chief Counsel of the ACLU/SC. “This latest in a seeming unending series of law enforcement scandals on the part of County officials means that there can be no assurance that any of the many thousands of prosecutions during this period resulted in a fair trial.” Numerous reports by advocacy organizations, monitors, and media outlets have documented that deputy-on-inmate violence is commonplace in the Los Angeles County Jails. These investigations have also confirmed that abused inmates are regularly charged for alleged assault on any deputy involved. These charges serve to cover up deputy misconduct because threat of serious jail time for these felonies frequently results in plea bargains, which insulate the county and the individual deputies from potential civil liability and protect the deputies from disciplinary or criminal proceedings for their abuse. |