Wednesday, June 17, 2026
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Oversight Body Seeks Subpoena Enforcement Against LASD
In Latest Clash With County Counsel, Civilian Group Asserts That Lawyers Have Advised Agency to Withhold Requested Use-of-Force Data Until Board Meets With Unions, Declined to Appoint Independent Attorney
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
A civilian oversight body has filed a subpoena enforcement action against the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, alleging that the agency has withheld requested information relating to three use-of-force incidents in violation of California law on the advice of the Office of County Counsel on the asserted basis that the group must first engage in a meet-and-confer process with the unions representing the agency’s employees.
In a certification of facts accompanying Monday’s petition for an order to show cause, the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission (“COC”) further claimed that the Office of County Counsel refused a request to have an independent attorney appointed to represent the group, based on an asserted conflict of interest, and that the body was forced to seek pro bono representation on its own accord in order to seek enforcement of its subpoenas.
Two ex-COC chairs, former U.S. District Court Judge Robert Bonner of the Central District of California and Loyola Law School Professor Sean Kennedy, took on the matter on a pro bono basis. Each left the group last year after a scuffle with county attorneys over the group’s decision to file an amicus brief opposing the prosecution of Diana Teran, a top aide to ousted District Attorney George Gascón who was accused of unlawfully downloading deputy files during her time with the Sheriff’s Department.
Bonner, who was chair of the commission at the time, signed each of the three subpoenas duces tecum at issue.
Three Subpoenas
Those subpoenas, each dated Feb. 27, 2025, demanded that a knowledgeable custodian of records appear at the COC’s March 20, 2025 meeting to produce department records relating to three use-of-force incidents occurring between 2020-23. No custodian appeared at the hearing, but a thumb drive was later delivered to the group’s office containing allegedly heavily-redacted, publicly-available reports.
When pressed for further disclosures, the department took the position, purportedly on the advice of counsel, that some of the requested records could not be produced to COC because the group was foreclosed by the Brown Act from entering into closed session meetings as required for the review of confidential peace officer personnel records under Penal Code §832.7.
Following last year’s passage of AB 847, which, as enacted, explicitly amended §832.7 and Government Code §25303.7 to allow sheriff oversight commissions to receive confidential personnel records in closed sessions, COC sent a letter to Sheriff Robert Luna, dated Jan. 5, asking the department head to produce the responsive, unredacted documents during a closed session at a meeting scheduled for later that month.
COC claimed that no custodian appeared at the Jan. 22 meeting, and the department failed to produce the unredacted force reports.
Union Engagement
According to COC, the County Counsel’s Office advised the law enforcement agency that it need not comply with the subpoenas until after the oversight body agreed to meet and confer with the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association regarding the effects of the legislative amendments on represented employees.
In a declaration accompanying the petition, COC Chair Hans Johnson said that he “formally requested” of that the office appoint separate and independent counsel to represent the commission regarding actions to enforce the outstanding subpoenas but that “County Counsel has refused.”
Monday’s petition provides:
“Petitioner…will and hereby does respectfully petition the Court to issue an order directing Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (“LASD”) and Robert L. Luna, Sheriff of Los Angeles County (“Sheriff”) to appear before the Court and show cause why he should not be ordered to comply with the three Subpoenas for Personal Appearance and production of documents issued by the Commission on February 27, 2025….”
COC cited §25303.7 for the principle that “[w]hen, as here, a witness ‘fails to attend’ in compliance with a subpoena and fails to produce the subpoenaed documents, the Superior Court may order the recalcitrant witness to comply upon pain of contempt” and said that “[t]he effective date of the amendments cannot be delayed by Meet-and-Confer bargaining.”
Lethal Incident
In one subpoena duces tecum, COC is seeking the Homicide Bureau’s “complete investigation” file relating to the June 2020 lethal use-of-force incident against then-18-year-old Andres Guardado, who was purportedly seen displaying a handgun before taking flight. The shooting was not captured on body-worn cameras, and an eyewitness complained that the decedent was shot in the back multiple times after he dropped to his knees and surrendered.
Seeking to review the reports to determine whether there is any indication that the deputy who fired the fatal shots, Miguel Vega, was linked to a law enforcement gang known as the “Executioners,” Johnson declared that the Department produced only heavily redacted “public” documents that were insufficient to provide the desired information; prosecutors declined to charge Vega, but the county paid an $8 million settlement to his parents in 2022.
A second subpoena demands the production of “[t]he initial Force Review Package prepared in 2023, including the Supervisors Report of Use of Force…, related to former Deputy Sheriff Joseph Benza III’s use of force involving civilian Emmett Brock on or about Feb. 10, 2023.”
After Benza agreed, in December 2024, to plead guilty to a federal charge accusing him of using excessive force against Brock, who prosecutors alleged was badly beaten after he displayed his middle finger to the deputy, the COC decided to look into the department’s asserted failure to investigate the incident. In the certification of facts accompanying Monday’s petition, the group claimed:
“The COC needs to examine the initial Force Review Package, including Deputy Benza’s statement of what happened, to understand why the Department failed to discover Benza’s unconstitutional use of force….This would permit the COC to advise the LASD on how force reviews may be improved.”
Also seeking information about the July 2020 arrest of Joseph Perez, whose mother has appeared at numerous public hearings to complain that her son was badly beaten without cause, COC expressed concern that LASD does not appear to have initiated an internal review of the matter.
Bonner—who was forced out of his position as chair last summer after the clash over the amicus brief filed in the since-dismissed Teran criminal case—expressed concern over the decision by the Office of County Counsel not to appoint an independent attorney to handle enforcement proceedings.
Highlighting that the California rules of professional conduct apply to all lawyers, including public ones, Bonner cited California Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7, which provides:
“A lawyer shall not, without informed written consent from each client…, represent a client if the representation is directly adverse to another client in the same or a separate matter.”
Conflict of Interest
Bonner said:
“Any lawyer worth her salt would see that county counsel has a conflict of interest requiring them to provide independent counsel for the commission. It is absolutely essential here because county counsel takes a position that is adverse to the independent authority of the oversight commission to issue subpoenas.”
Saying that “county counsel is trying to represent three sides…the Sheriff’s Department, the County Board of Supervisors, and the oversight commission,” he remarked:
“They are taking a position that’s legally untenable and in conflict with the oversight commission’s independent interest in having its subpoenas enforced. They refused to appoint separate, independent counsel for the commission to file this action. And that’s why…it was necessary for Sean Kennedy and me to come in and offer our services pro bono. It shouldn’t have happened…that way. County counsel should have just appointed independent counsel to represent the commission, but it refused to do so.”
Voter Adopted Measure
The former jurist, who also headed the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and has held various other high-level posts, continued:
“The voters adopted Measure R in 2020 to give the commission independent subpoena authority. And the Legislature passed a statute last year that makes clear that, with respect to confidential peace officer records, an oversight commission could receive and review confidential records in closed session….One of two things is going to happen with respect to the commission’s subpoena enforcement action, filed yesterday, either a court will enforce the commission subpoenas or it won’t, in which case we will know that the commission is no more than window dressing.”
The Office of County Counsel did not respond to a request for comment.
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