Rampart-Related Report Issued
by the Los Angeles County Bar Association Blue Ribbon Task Force

The LA County Bar Association has just concluded a nearly 21 month long investigation into the Rampart scandal. The Blue Ribbon Task Force, chaired by U.S. District Court Judge Audrey Collins, included 24 former prosecutors, criminal defense practitioners, judges, academicians, and community leaders.

The group has produced a 30 page Final Report.

In recent weeks members of the LAPD Police Commission have expressed a desire to create LAPD's own independent Rampart Blue Ribbon Task Force, armed with unfettered access to all available information.

The idea is to make a final determination as to what occured during the scandal, to put to rest any remaining questions, and to make solution oriented recommendations so that another similar incident won't happen.

LA Community Policing supports this concept. But we'd hope the LAPD does not feel the need to replicate any work that's already been done. The community at large believes the Department needs as many officers as it can on the streets, not conducting more audits and writing reports.

Perhaps LAPD can take advantage of this just completed work.

In the spirit of offering information we hope will be useful to the community, we're presenting the LA County Bar Association Blue Ribbon Task Force Report. As you'll see, it goes far beyond policing policies. The Task Force makes over 30 recommendations.

Of course it concluded that prosecutive and law enforcement agencies need to implement improved procedures for gathering and tracking information relating to police officers whose honesty and truthfulness may be in question. But far beyond that it made significant recommendations for policy, procedural and statutory reforms to California's criminal justice system.

In a press release dated April 22, the day the report was released, Association President Miriam Aroni Krinsky noted that the group's recommendations, "while not foolproof or exhaustive, will help ensure the integrity of criminal convictions and reaffirm the public's confidence in our system of justice."

She went on to explain that the Task Force was created to "fill a void" and "examine critical aspects of the state criminal justice system that no prior group had sought to review in the wake of the unfortunate Rampart incident." Rather than focus on the practices of the Police Department -- the primary concern of the Rampart Independent Review Panel and other studies -- the Task Force was formed to study the policies and practices employed by the institutional components of the State of California's adversarial criminal justice system, including the courts, prosecutorial offices, and defense counsel.

Task Force Chair Hon. Audrey Collins noted that the group's report "is the culmination of approximately 21 months of hard work and seeks to address deficiencies in California's criminal justice system that became evident after the Rampart events."

"The Task Force hopes that these recommendations will be considered by all parts of our state's criminal justice system as new procedures and reforms are crafted to address the host of concerns raised by the Rampart scandal," Collins explained.

We encourage you to download the full 30 page document, but it's a large file in PDF format, so not everyone will be able to read it:

Los Angeles County Bar Association Blue Ribbon Task Force Report
( PDF format )

If you can't, here are the Introduction and the Conclusion from the Report, which highlight the Task Force's work:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF LESSONS LEARNED
April 2003

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPROVING
THE CALIFORNIA CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
IN THE WAKE OF THE RAMPART SCANDAL

LOS ANGELES COUNTY BAR ASSOCIATION TASK FORCE
ON THE STATE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INTRODUCTION

The Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart scandal has had broad repercussions: criminal convictions of police officers involved, the dismissal of over 100 cases upon motion of the District Attorney’s office as a result of “tainted evidence,” and millions of dollars in civil settlements relating to Officer Rafael Perez’s allegations.

As aptly stated by the Rampart Independent Review Panel, the Rampart incident resulted from the very culture and management structure of our police department:

In the time since the Rampart scandal, many reviews have been conducted to address the conduct and practices of the LAPD. These reviews have resulted in voluminous reports by the LAPD itself as well as other governmental agencies, civic organizations, and concerned citizens. These studies have been illuminating and have led to positive recommendations for change. It became apparent to some, however, that a broader analysis was required to ascertain what improvements could be made within the criminal justice system as a whole, particularly in prosecutorial offices and in the judiciary, to provide stronger and additional safeguards against such abuses in the future.

In an effort to respond to this need, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, under the leadership of President Miriam Krinsky, put together a task force on the state criminal justice system – a group of experienced lawyers, with a mix of former prosecutors, defenders, judges, investigators, and academics – to see what could be learned from Rampart and to make process recommendations relating to all parts of the justice system that could tend to inhibit this type of misconduct in the future. United States District Court Judge Audrey Collins, a former state court prosecutor, chaired the Task Force. Work commenced in autumn of 2001.

One of the Task Force’s aims was to speak not only to the Los Angeles Police Department, but also to other criminal justice professionals in the state, to policy makers, and to a concerned public. From the outset, it became painfully clear that legal and administrative reforms outside the police and sheriff’s departments alone could not provide the magic cureall for police misconduct or unjust convictions.

At a minimum, significant steps need to be taken within a police or sheriff’s department. The very culture of a department has to begin with an understanding of the department’s role and a deep commitment to follow and obey the law and our constitutional principles, even as it pursues those who abuse it. This culture must be established and maintained at the top, and it must inhabit every layer of a department. It has to be refreshed in training and manifested attitudinally by those on the line. To succeed, a department should remove those who violate the law and, where justified, punish them. Every police or sheriff’s officer or employee should know that their colleagues who abuse the public’s trust not only shame them but discredit their work as well.

The good news is that the law enforcement officials with whom the Task Force has spoken – among them Sheriff Lee Baca and Chief William Bratton – are seriously involved in trying to develop a better police cultural climate. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley is also involved in trying to address some of the issues we discuss in this Report. They give us hope.

At the same time, the Task Force has attempted through consensus to fashion a series of recommendations pertaining primarily to the roles of the prosecutor and of the judiciary in better recognizing law enforcement and witness misconduct and providing greater accountability when that misconduct occurs. These reforms must be an integral part of any realistic attempt to avoid future injustices in our criminal justice system.

Significant parts of the recommendations here go beyond or modify existing California law. It is the considered judgment of the Task Force that the recommendations would improve the criminal justice system in this state. In so recommending, the Task Force is mindful of the crisis that brought it together, and makes these recommendations in light of those events. Justice will be furthered if all components of the criminal justice system join the Task Force and endorse the proposals herein for constructive reform.

The more than thirty recommendations formulated by the Task Force are aimed at inhibiting and stopping police abuse through a better early-warning system.

Some of the Task Force recommendations include:

The greater use of essential percipient witness testimony at preliminary hearings;

Enhanced prosecutorial practices to ensure timely and thorough production of Brady and Pitchess material;

Plea-taking only after appropriate defense investigation and preparation, and a full understanding by the defendant of the consequences of a guilty plea;

The creation of automated law enforcement databases to track citizen complaints and other personnel records for a period of at least ten years;

The development of centralized databases in prosecutorial offices for Brady material (material favorable to the defense), and for information that may eventually lead to or become Brady material;

A broad and clear standard for referral of witness credibility issues to the District Attorney for further investigation; and

Localizing court districts in Los Angeles County for greater accountability with respect to recurring witnesses.

Foolproof? No. The Task Force has no illusion that these recommendations are a cure-all. But the Task Force believes they will prove helpful, and act as a supplement to what we hope will be an improved police culture.

Not all of the recommendations here have statewide significance. For example, the localizing of the Los Angeles Central Judicial District is a recommendation aimed only at our local court. Some of the proposed recommendations will admittedly be difficult and costly to implement, e.g., the creation and maintenance of the databases. Some may require legislative action, e.g., preliminary hearing reform. But based on our acquisition of information from lawyers on all sides of the system, law enforcement, and judges (both within and outside Los Angeles County), and after our own give-and-take, the Task Force submits that these recommendations, if implemented, will not only provide a supplement to police reform measures, but will improve California’s overall quality of justice.

CONCLUSION

The Los Angeles County Bar Association Task Force on the State Criminal Justice System was assembled over a year ago to examine various parts of our state justice system and suggest improvements. The Task Force believes that adoption of the recommendations discussed above, while surely not foolproof or exhaustive, would contribute to the interests of justice by ensuring the integrity of criminal convictions and reaffirming the public’s confidence in our justice system, without undermining the efficient administration of the system. It is thus our hope that these recommendations will be considered by all parts of our state criminal justice system as new procedures and reforms are crafted to address the host of concerns that came to light in the wake of the Rampart scandal.