Bar on False Police Misconduct Reports Is Unconstitutional

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

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California Supreme Court:

Bar on False Police Misconduct Reports Is Unconstitutional

Majority ‘Parts Ways’ With Prior Case on Same Law, Says Section Criminalizing Untrue Complaints Unduly Burdens Filing of Legitimate Ones; Liu Dissents

By Kimber Cooley, associate editor

A divided California Supreme Court held Monday that a Penal Code section that criminalizes the knowingly making of a false report of police misconduct, and requires reporters to sign an acknowledgment of the law, violates the First Amendment because it unduly burdens the filing of legitimate complaints, “part[ing] ways” with a prior decision finding that the statute passes constitutional muster.

At issue is Penal Code §148.6(a) which provides that “[e]very person who files any allegation of misconduct against any peace officer,…knowing the allegation to be false, is guilty of a misdemeanor” and demands that the complainant must “read and sign” an advisory that notifies the party of the illegality of lodging such a complaints.

Justice Joshua P. Groban authored Monday’s opinion, acknowledging that the court had earlier declared that the section withstood constitutional scrutiny, in its 2002 decision in People v. Stanistreet, but declaring:

“[W]e reaffirm Stanistreet’s conclusion that the Legislature has the authority ‘to protect the integrity of complaint procedures by…deterring abuse.’…[H]owever, we conclude that as presently drafted section 148.6(a) ‘works disproportionate constitutional harm’…by attempting to achieve those objectives in a manner that unduly chills a core form of protected speech—truthful or well-intentioned complaints of government misconduct. It consequently fails intermediate scrutiny and thus violates the First Amendment.”

Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero as well as Justices Carol Corrigan, Leondra Kruger, Kelli Evans, and recently retired Justice Martin J. Jenkins, sitting by assignment, joined in the opinion.

Justice Goodwin H. Liu dissented, writing:

“Section 148.6 is no more unconstitutional than laws that make it a crime to commit perjury, file a false police report, submit a false document to a public agency, or lie to a government official concerning an official matter.”

Complaint Filed

The question arose after the Los Angeles Police Protective League filed a complaint against the City of Los Angeles in 2017, seeking an injunction to force the municipality to comply with §148.6(a)’s advisory requirement.

Los Angeles had stopped requiring complaining parties to sign the statutorily mandated notice after the federal government sued the city in 2000, alleging various civil rights violations. The city entered into a consent decree, one provision of which involved an agreement not to enforce §148.6(a); after the decree expired in 2013, the city continued to ignore the statutory mandate.

Arguing that the section was unconstitutional, the city cited the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals opinion in Chaker v. Crogan, decided three years after Stanistreet, finding that §148.6(a) is unconstitutional as it impermissibly discriminates against a party falsely criticizing officers while not providing similar restrictions against those who lie in support of law enforcement. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert B. Broadbelt concluded that he was bound by Stanistreet and enjoined the City from accepting any complaint alleging misconduct by a peace officer unless the complaining party had signed the advisory required by section 148.6(a). Div. Seven of this District’s Court of Appeal affirmed.

Stare Decisis

Groban addressed the doctrine of stare decisis, saying that “we do not ‘lightly’ depart from past precedents” but noting that the rule gives way when later developments indicate that an earlier decision was unsound. He wrote:

“[I]n the years since Stanistreet was decided, multiple federal decisions have rejected its reasoning, creating a split of authority that has resulted in a mandatory injunction issued by a state superior court (and affirmed by the Court of Appeal) directing that the City enforce section 148.6(a)(2)’s admonishment requirement despite the fact that the Ninth Circuit has held that the criminal provision that section 148.6(a)(2) references is unconstitutional.”

He added:

“Since Stanistreet was decided, the United States Supreme Court has issued multiple rulings that provide further guidance regarding how we should evaluate the constitutionality of a statute like section 148.6(a), which discriminates based on content within a proscribable class of knowing falsehoods….”

Content-Based Regulation

The justice pointed out that the parties do not dispute that §148.6(a) “qualifies as a content-based regulation of speech but said that “our high court has identified limited situations in which strict scrutiny does not automatically apply,” including “defamation, fraud, fighting words and obscenity.”

He said that the Stanistreet court viewed “section 148.6(a) as regulating a subclass of false statements that unquestionably falls outside the protections of the First Amendment, namely defamatory falsehoods.”

However, he opined that more recent U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence has made clear that “some forms of prohibitions on knowingly false statements…can trigger constitutional scrutiny if the prohibition is written in such a manner that it unduly burdens protected speech.” In light of those developments, he remarked:

“[W]e conclude that section 148.6(a)’s criminal provision…and its accompanying admonition requirement…exhibit numerous characteristics that, considered together, ‘incidental[ly] burden’…or otherwise present a reasonable risk of driving certain forms of protected speech—namely, truthful (or at least not knowingly false) complaints of police misconduct—from the public sphere so as to warrant additional scrutiny.”

Saying that “courts have long emphasized that ‘the freedom to criticize public officials and expose their wrongdoing is a fundamental First Amendment value,’ ” he reasoned:

“Adding to those concerns, section 148.6(a)(1)’s criminal provision is asymmetrical in its application, criminalizing knowingly false complaints filed against law enforcement personnel—and expressly requiring complainants be told of that possibility—while leaving unregulated (and requiring no admonition against) knowingly false claims that a witness might make against the complainant during any ensuing investigation.”

Undefined Term

Groban further raised a concern over the fact that “misconduct” is never defined, saying that, because the admonition provision uses the term “improper police conduct,” the law may require “persons of common intelligence” to guess at what types of statements may lead to criminal charges.

Considering the statute as a whole, he commented:

“Because section 148.6(a) constitutes a content-based regulation within a proscribable category of speech that presents a consequential risk of suppressing a core form of protected speech, further constitutional scrutiny is warranted. The level of scrutiny that applies to a regulation like section 148.6(a), which discriminates on the basis of content within a proscribable category of falsehood (defamation), is somewhat uncertain.”

However, he concluded:

“[I]t is ultimately immaterial whether intermediate or strict scrutiny applies because we conclude that section 148.6(a) cannot survive even the less exacting standard of intermediate scrutiny.”

The jurist added:

“While the objective of curbing abusive false claims of police misconduct is sound, the means the Legislature chose to accomplish those objectives—an ill-defined criminal provision that is accompanied by an unusual admonition requirement—unnecessarily risk chilling substantially more speech than is necessary to further the government’s interests.”

Liu’s Dissent

Liu wrote:

“To be sure, many people, especially members of minority, immigrant, or low-income communities, may be reluctant to file complaints….But trust is a two-way street, and our men and women in uniform have a hard enough job without having to deal with knowingly false allegations of misconduct. Because section 148.6 targets unprotected speech and has not been shown to pose a substantial risk of suppressing protected speech, I cannot agree that it violates the First Amendment.”

Characterizing the rationale behind the majority opinion as resting “on speculative assertions” that do not “withstand scrutiny,” he argued:

“Section 148.6 is compatible with the First Amendment for the same reason that perjury statutes and other laws against false statements in official proceedings have long endured. These laws…safeguard the integrity of government processes that inform legal judgments or official actions.”

Pointing out that “witness statements in either direction, to the extent they are to be used as evidence, are subject to ordinary laws against false evidence,” he further rejected the characterization of the statute as open to multiple interpretations. He said:

“Parsing the distinction between ‘improper conduct’ and ‘misconduct,’…is a task (some) lawyers may love. But ordinary citizens giving words their ordinary meanings are not likely to be confused.”

The case is Los Angeles Police Protective League v. City of Los Angeles, 2025 S.O.S. 3170.