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C.A. Says Defendant Might Be Entitled to Officers’ Confidential Personnel Files
Opinion Says Practice of Disclosing Only Contact Data of Witnesses to Past Misconduct Is Insufficient When In Camera Review Reveals Material, Exculpatory Evidence
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Seven of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that a trial court erred in only handing over to the defense the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of witnesses to potential past misconduct by four law enforcement officers after an in camera review of their personnel records revealed that they contained some material, exculpatory evidence, saying production of the relevant portions of the actual confidential files must be ordered.
At issue is the interplay between two criminal discovery rules—one relating to materials sought under the 1974 California Supreme Court decision of Pitchess v. Superior Court and the other relating to information requested under the 1963 U.S. high court case in Brady v. Maryland.
In Pitchess, the court held that a criminal defendant may seek discovery from the court of potentially material evidence located in otherwise confidential police personnel records through an in-camera review process. Following the decision, the California Legislature adopted a statutory scheme governing the disclosure of information from such confidential records.
As part of the statutory scheme, and subject to certain exceptions, Penal Code §832.7 provides:
“[T]he personnel records of peace officers and custodial officers and records maintained by a state or local agency…, or information obtained from these records, are confidential and shall not be disclosed in any criminal or civil proceeding except by discovery pursuant to Section[] 1043…of the Evidence Code.”
Evidence Code §1043, in turn, sets forth procedures for requesting the information in the confidential files, including a requirement that the defense submit “[a]ffidavits showing good cause for the discovery or disclosure sought, setting forth the materiality thereof to the subject matter involved in the pending litigation.” If good cause is shown, the court conducts an in-camera review of the officer’s records.
In Camera Review
If, following the in-camera review, the court finds information of past complaints of excessive force or other misconduct by the officers that is related to allegations by the defendant that he was similarly mistreated, the court will turn over the contact information of the witnesses involved in the earlier altercations.
Courts have described these limited disclosures as maintaining the proper balance between the right to put on a defense and the officers’ privacy interests.
The U.S. Supreme Court in Brady held that the prosecution has a constitutional due process obligation to turn over to the defense any material, exculpatory evidence in its possession. If such information is located in a police personnel file, the only way for a criminal defendant to gain access to it is by following the legislatively adopted Pitchess procedures.
The question in the present case is whether a defendant seeking potential Brady information from a confidential police file through the Pitchess procedures is subjected to the limitation of only receiving contact information or whether he may obtain the actual documents from the files.
In Thursday’s opinion, authored by Justice Natalie P. Stone, the court noted tension between Brady and Pitchess in this context and differences in “what the movant must show to justify an in-camera review and…what information the court must order disclosed.”
Based on those differences, the court found that the Pitchess disclosure limitations do not apply when a trial court finds Brady material in the confidential files and held that all relevant documents and audio-visual materials in the records must be turned over.
Disclosable Material
The question arose after the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office notified Robert Schneider, a criminal defendant charged with murder, that six Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department deputies involved in investigating the case had potential “disclosable” material in their personnel records, information generally gleaned either through a notification by the agency or by a review of internal databases.
Schneider filed a discovery motion under Pitchess and Brady, and requested that, following an in-camera hearing, the court turn over documentary evidence rather than limiting any disclosures to the name and contact information of complainants and witnesses.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kelly M. Kelley, a former prosecutor for the county, conducted an in-camera review of the personnel records and found that the files of four of the six deputies contained information to which the defendant was entitled. She ordered disclosure of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the complainants and witnesses listed in the relevant files.
Several months later, Schneider filed another motion seeking Brady material from the files, which the court treated as a request for reconsideration. Kelley acknowledged that Schneider had filed a Brady motion “as opposed to a straight Pitchess” request, but found that the disclosure limitations applied.
The defendant filed a petition for a writ of mandate. Thursday’s opinion, joined in by Presiding Justice Gonzalo Martinez and Justice Gail Ruderman Feuer, granted the relief and directed the trial court to “vacate its order denying Schneider’s request for all Brady material in the four deputies’ personnel files and to conduct a further in camera review of the files to identify which records contain Brady material and therefore must be produced to Schneider’s counsel.”
Substantive Differences
Stone noted substantive differences between motions filed under the two discovery rules, saying that both require “good cause” to justify in camera review of the records but that the standard for a Brady motion is lower. She explained that a defendant seeking Pitchess discovery must propose a defense to the charge and describe how the information sought would support that theory or impeach the officer’s version of events.
A defendant seeking Brady material must only show that prosecutors revealed a so-called “Brady tip” from a law enforcement agency database in order to trigger an in camera review. No allegations of officer misconduct relating to the defendant are required.
She added that “[o]nce good cause has been shown, triggering the right to an in camera review, the scope of the disclosures” under each type of request “is also meaningfully different,” remarking that, under Brady, evidence is “material” only if it is reasonably probable that it would affect the outcome of a prosecution.
The jurist said:
“On a classic Pitchess motion, even complaints that have been deemed unfounded may be ‘potentially relevant’….By contrast, a citizen complaint that has been deemed unfounded typically would not meet Brady’s higher materiality standards.”
Judicially-Created Rule
Noting that the limitation to disclosures in the Pitchess context is “a judicially-created” rule, Stone reasoned:
“Given…the potential to sweep in materials with only minimal relevance in an officer’s confidential file, limiting initial disclosures to names and contact information for complainants and witnesses makes sense in a classic Pitchess context.
“By contrast, when a court determines that an officer’s personnel file contains Brady information,…the relevance of the material is not ‘minimal.’ Rather, the court has concluded that the information has the potential to affect the outcome of the trial.”
She pointed out that, even in the Pitchess context, disclosure of the actual documents may be ordered if the defendant shows that the witnesses refused to cooperate with him and commented:
“But when a court has determined in its initial in camera review that documents or other materials in an officer’s file fall under Brady, there is no need for such a second step; the movant is entitled to full Brady discovery in the first instance.”
Stone declared:
“Having ruled that there was good cause for an in camera review of the personnel files, and having found Brady material in some of them, the trial court was obligated to order the disclosure of ‘all information’ that meets Brady’s requirements, i.e., that meets the definition for ‘favorable’ and ‘material’ under Brady.”
In a footnote, she added:
“The parties agreed at oral argument that, prior to production to the requesting party, redactions of personnel records that are Brady material may sometimes be necessary and appropriate, for instance to protect the confidentiality rights of officers whose conduct is not at issue. The precise contours of such redactions and how they may be effectuated are not issues before us in this writ proceeding.”
The case is Schneider v. Superior Court (Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department), 2025 S.O.S. 1456.
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