Public not served by police secrecy

By: JOHN PARKER - Commentary | Saturday, June 9, 2007 7:12 PM PDT ∞

Public confidence in the integrity of the government is indispensable to faith in democracy; and when we lose faith in the system, we have lost faith in everything we fight and spend for.

---- Adlai Stevenson, 1952 speech

The state Senate voted on Monday to pass Senate Bill 1019, which will reverse some of the damage inflicted on the citizens' right to have an open discipline process for peace officers in California. As a former police officer and police oversight executive, I know that our police forces generally perform admirably, keeping our streets, homes, businesses and persons safe and secure. Most officers honor their pledge to protect and serve. There are, however, some who abuse the public trust and the exceptional authority they are granted to question, detain, arrest and even use deadly force. There are virtually no other public officials who can have such an effect on our lives.

Yet since an August 2006 California Supreme Court decision, Copley Press v. Superior Court of San Diego, police officers enjoy a special legal status that no other public sector employee does. With Copley, California law now prevents the public from learning about police officers who have been disciplined because of misconduct ---- a public right to know that existed for decades and was quite workable. All hearings and records that, pre-Copley, were made public are now shrouded in secrecy. Even if an officer is found guilty of misconduct, the records remain undisclosed. In essence, the California Supreme Court's excessively broad interpretation of state law created a secret police force that is no longer accountable to the public.

Such secrecy around police misconduct damages police-community relations and the public trust. This, of course, has the unwelcome effect of undermining law enforcement efforts, which is why the National Black Police Association, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, and the mayor and police chief of Los Angeles, among dozens of others, have all endorsed a bill before the California Legislature that would override this bad decision and restore public access to police officer records.

SB 1019 will reverse the damaging effects of the court's decision and re-establish the status quo that was in place prior to Copley. SB 1019 would essentially overturn Copley and would allow civilian review boards and other police oversight agencies to hold public hearings about citizen complaints on police misconduct, just as they did before the August decision.

Police associations claim that these behind-closed-doors hearings and identity protections are a matter of privacy rights. But there is no right to privacy in official misconduct. We have the right to know about misconduct by all public employees ---- like teachers and politicians, and doctors and lawyers. The public needs to have confidence in the integrity of the criminal justice system that wields such power over our liberty and lives. Secrecy can only result in heightened public mistrust of the government and systems that embody our democracy. The majority of citizens who believe in openness of our law enforcement disciplinary system should contact their state legislators and the governor's office and demand passage of this measure into law.

Carlsbad resident John Parker retired in March after 10 years as executive director of the Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board. Before that, he was an Oakland police officer for 22 years.