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Court of Appeal Orders Halt to Prosecution of Diana Teran
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday ordered that the prosecution of Diana Maria Teran, a top aide to then-District Attorney George Gascón, be dropped.
Teran was charged by the Office of Attorney General with unlawfully downloading files of deputies while employed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and sharing them with colleagues when she joined the District Attorney’s Office,
Under Penal Code §502(c)(2), any person who “[k]nowingly accesses and without permission takes, copies, or makes use of any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network, or takes or copies any supporting documentation, whether existing or residing internal or external to a computer, computer system, or computer network” is guilty of a public offense.
Moor’s Opinion
Moor wrote:
“[T]he central concerns that compelled the Legislature to address computer crime were focused on conduct such as hacking into and tampering with computer systems and data, and the disruptions and costs of such conduct to the business of public and private entities. While we recognize that the statute includes, in section 502(c)(2), criminal penalties for the unauthorized taking, copying, and use of data, neither the legislative history nor statement of legislative intent identify the secondary use of materials obtained from an entity’s computer system as a principal concern of the Legislature.”
He took issue with the prosecution’s broad interpretation of the word “use,” pointing out that under its reading of the statute, “if years after leaving a job at a prior employer, an employee recalls by memory some information learned in an email from that employer, and shares it with her new employer, sharing that recollection would meet the definition of ‘use’ without permission.”
Unreasonable Construction
The jurist commented:
“[T]he People’s construction of section 502(c)(2) is unreasonable in light of the purely public nature of the court records at issue in this case, even recognizing that the documents concern disciplinary proceedings involving peace officers. These court documents convey nothing that a member of the public could not learn by sitting in a courtroom attending the court proceedings or reviewing publicly available information from the court’s docket and files.”
Moor added:
“The placement of public records in confidential personnel files does not transform them into confidential records.”
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