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County Counsel Accuses Commission of ‘Grandstanding’
Bonner, Head of Sheriff’s Department Oversight Panel, Shoots Back, Asserts ‘Frivolous’ Conduct
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Los Angeles County’s Office of County Counsel has accused the Civilian Oversight Commission—a nine-member panel created by the Board of Supervisors in 2016 to help facilitate accountability within the Sheriff’s Department—of having “lost its focus” and engaging in “grandstanding” and “divisiveness,” shooting off its rhetorical attack in a press release relating to an on-going dispute over the independence of the committee.
Friday’s press release follows the Office of County Counsel’s Feb 19 filing of a letter in the Court of Appeal for this district objecting to and, in effect, moving to strike the commission’s amicus brief in a criminal case against former Los Angeles County Assistant District Attorney Diana Teran protesting the prosecution of her.
On Feb. 20, the commission requested that the Board of Supervisors not accept the resignation of Commissioner Sean Kennedy, who decided to step down after receiving a letter from county attorneys threatening legal action if he filed that amicus brief
Teran, an advisor to former-Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, is accused of violating state hacking laws by sending public court records relating to lawsuits asserting misconduct by sheriff’s deputies to a colleague as part of a purported effort to track problem officers. Prosecutors argue that Teran only knew about the records because she had access to confidential files when she worked at the Sheriff’s Department three years earlier.
Insufficient Cause
After the preliminary hearing, lawyers for Teran petitioned for writ review, arguing that probable cause was lacking to justify the continued prosecution. The Court of Appeal for this district stayed the matter and issued an order to show cause as to why the case should not be dismissed; a hearing on the order is scheduled for April.
Together with the commission chair, former U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Bonner who served in the Central District of California, Kennedy filed the amicus brief in his official capacity on Feb. 17, before resigning his post. The commission voted in support of the filing.
Kennedy and Bonner urge the dismissal of criminal charges against Teran, arguing that her prosecution chills the commission’s ability to provide oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. They assert that, since Teran’s indictment, members of the Sheriff’s Department and other county bodies have referenced the threat of criminal prosecution when refusing to share information with the Civilian Oversight Commission (“COC”).
County Counsel Dawyn R. Harrison’s office says it objected to the filing based on the fact that the COC did not first obtain approval from the Board of Supervisors.
Bonner, a former head of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, commented yesterday:
“As a former judge and trial practitioner, I have seldom seen legal positions as petty, trivial and facially frivolous as those taken by county counsel in opposing the commission’s amicus brief.”
County Counsel’s Statement
In Friday’s press release, the County Counsel’s Office asserted:
“The dispute comes down to a simple fact: the COC—like every other advisory commission created by the Board of Supervisors and all County departments—is not allowed to act independently of the Board of Supervisors. It is the Office of County Counsel’s job to help all commissions and departments navigate federal, state, and local regulations to ensure their actions are consistent and in alignment with the policy and legal direction from the Board of Supervisors. This is exactly what the Office of County Counsel has done for the COC.”
The statement continues:
“The COC believes its work would be more effective if it were an independent commission and has voted to amend its ordinance to make itself more independent. However, under the current law, it is not independent but advisory. Therefore, just like all the other 200-plus commissions in the County, if the commissioners wish to seek the approval of the Board of Supervisors on any of their requested actions, they simply need to utilize their Executive Director and assigned County staff to accomplish this task….If they are not interested in seeking the Board’s approval, Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Bonner can resubmit their brief filing in their individual capacities….The commission’s wish for the Board to reject Sean Kennedy’s resignation could also have taken a simpler route—no press release is required, a simple letter would do.”
Resignation Letter
Kennedy is the executive director of the Center for Juvenile Law & Policy at Loyola Law School and a former federal public defender. He has served as a commissioner since his appointment in November 2016.
In his resignation letter to the Board of Supervisors, he wrote:
“The County Counsel threatening to report me to the court for making ‘misrepresentations’ because I filed an amicus brief regarding oversight issues—after public debate and a unanimous COC vote—crossed a personal red line.”
He added:
“The County Counsel has made meaningful civilian oversight of the LASD nearly impossible by opposing all efforts to clarify the COC’s independence and by advising the Sheriff to withhold requested confidential documents that the COC needs to review to make recommendations about policies and procedures.”
Bonner’s View
Bonner remarked:
“In its release, county counsel states that the commission is not allowed to act independently. This is not correct. First, when it created the commission in 2016, the Board of Supervisors made clear that it expected to provide independent oversight of the Sheriff’s Department.
“Moreover, in March 2020, the voters of Los Angeles County provided the commission with authority to conduct independent investigations and with independent subpoena power. Then-County Counsel Mary Wickham stressed in her ballot statement regarding Measure R that the commission would be given these independent authorities, independent from and not derived from the Board of Supervisors.”
He added:
“County counsel has been anything but supportive of the oversight commission. They seem to have gone out of their way to make effective oversight of the Sheriff’s Department more difficult.”
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