Tuesday, June 13, 2017
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C.A. Upholds Beck’s Firing of Officer Who Used Official Resources to Locate Woman He Fancied
Won’t Consider Challenges to Superior Court’s Denial of Writ Because Administrative Record Wasn’t Supplied
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district has declined to consider the contention of a Los Angeles police officer that he was wrongfully fired by the chief of police based on alleged skirt-chasing on company time, declaring that supplying by his attorney of the trial court record wasn’t good enough.
Officer Marques Brown’s attorney “failed to provide us with the administrative record,” Justice Laurence D. Rubin said in his opinion on Friday for Div. Eight, declaring that the officer has therefore “forfeited his arguments on appeal.”
Announcing the affirmance of a decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mary Strobel, Rubin said, in the unpublished opinion:
“We both presume the trial court’s judgment is correct and observe that contained within the trial court’s 19-page ruling is citation to ample evidence to support its decision and the decision of the Board.”
Strobel’s Decision
Strobel had denied a writ of administrative mandamus sought by Brown in contesting the action by Police Chief Charley Beck in terminating his employment based on a finding of misconduct on his part by the LAPD’s Board of Rights.
The board found that on Jan. 21, 2013, while on duty, Brown chatted with a woman while they were in line at a Starbucks outlet; he ran her license plate number, and the Department of Motor Vehicles advised him of her home address; he showed up there claiming to be responding to a 911 call; he asked several times for permission to enter the residence to look around and she denied him entry.
Brown’s testimony before the board was that a pedestrian named “McMichael” flagged him down while he was patrolling in his car and said he heard screams from particular residence and he went there, finding it was occupied by the woman he had been taking with at Starbucks.
The board found Brown’s version of the facts to be improbable and, in recommending termination, noted that he previously incurred a 14-day suspension because he tried twice to contact a woman through Facebook who he had encountered during a traffic stop.
Rubin Explains
Rubin wrote:
“On appeal, Brown provided this court with a copy of the reporter’s transcript from the trial court’s hearing and the clerk’s transcript containing his petition for a writ of mandate, his memorandum of points and authorities in support of that petition, the City’s opposition to the petition, the court’s minute order, the judgment, and a notice of appeal. Brown failed to provide this court with the administrative record. Without the administrative record we cannot review the trial court’s denial of Brown’s petition for substantial evidence.”
The case is Brown v. City of Los Angeles, B272120.
Ira M. Salzman represented Brown and Deputy City Attorney Lisa S. Berger acted for the city.
Copyright 2017, Metropolitan News Company