Pubdate: Fri, 20 Apr 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Henry Weinstein, Times Legal Affairs Writer
Note: Times staff writer Matt Lait contributed to this story.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rampart.htm (L.A. Rampart Scandal)

RACKETEER SUITS IN RAMPART OKD

Courts: Judge Rules That RICO Act May Be Used Against Police Department, 
Which Could Add To The City's Financial Liability.

In a ruling that could markedly increase the city's financial exposure in 
the Rampart police scandal, the federal judge presiding over all 
Rampart-related civil suits has ruled that the Los Angeles Police 
Department can be sued as a racketeering enterprise.

The ruling, for cases in which individuals say their rights were violated 
by Rampart Division officers, marks the second time in seven months that a 
federal judge has rebuffed efforts by the city attorney's office to dismiss 
Rampart-related claims filed under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and 
Corrupt Organizations) Act.

U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess' ruling is more significant than the one 
issued by his colleague William J. Rea last August because Feess is 
presiding over about 100 Rampart cases. He is also the judge overseeing the 
consent decree between the city and the federal government, stemming from 
the U.S. Justice Department's plans to sue the LAPD for a pattern or 
practice of civil rights violations.

Legal experts said Feess' ruling takes the city into uncharted territory 
because no police department or major police official has ever been held 
liable under the RICO law.

Originally enacted to help ensnare mobsters, the law has been used over the 
last three decades in a wide range of cases ranging from stock manipulation 
to major health care fraud.

Feess' ruling, in a suit filed by Los Angeles resident D'Novel Hunter, was 
hailed by his attorney Stephen Yagman, who has filed 23 cases seeking 
damages as a result of allegedly illegal conduct by Rampart Division officers.

Hunter spent four years in prison on a drug conviction and charges in his 
suit that he was framed by Rafael A. Perez, the former LAPD officer whose 
allegations of rampant illegal action by officers is at the center of the 
Rampart scandal. So far, abut 100 convictions have been overturned as a 
result of the scandal, but Hunter's is not among them.

Feess' ruling "makes clear that there will be racketeering liability for 
City Atty. Jimmy Hahn and his racketeer cohorts," Yagman said.

Thomas Hokinson, who heads the civil liability section of the city 
attorney's office, took issue with Yagman's conclusion. He said that Feess' 
ruling came only on a limited issue--whether Hunter's RICO claim should be 
barred because of a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision that precludes federal 
civil rights actions against law enforcement by a defendant whose 
conviction had not been tossed out by a court.

Feess dismissed some of the counts in Hunter's suit--including a separate 
claim under a federal civil rights law--but not the RICO claim. Feess said 
that the 1994 ruling, Heck vs. Humphrey, was not a valid defense for the city.

The Heck case only addresses actions filed under the federal civil rights 
law and "focuses on the interplay of that statute and the federal law on 
overturning criminal convictions on constitutional grounds," Feess wrote in 
his decision.

"Nowhere in the [Supreme Court] majority's opinion" in Heck "did the court 
suggest that the rule applies more generally to . . . all civil actions 
that might be filed by individuals with outstanding criminal convictions," 
Feess added.

In his ruling, Feess acknowledged that two other federal district judges, 
including one in Northern California, had issued contrary rulings. But 
Feess said that those judges had improperly extrapolated the breadth of the 
Heck ruling.

Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson, a RICO expert, said Feess' action was 
noteworthy. "If this were a judge who just wanted to kick the RICO 
allegations in the Rampart cases, there was an avenue for him to do so," 
Levenson said. "These RICO allegations are not just a vehicle for a 
defendant to collaterally attack his conviction but to deal with a broader 
pattern of conduct by the LAPD."

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who did a special report on the 
Rampart situation for the Police Protective League, called the ruling 
important.

"The significance of this decision is [that] the court is saying the RICO 
claim is not barred even when a civil rights action on the same facts would 
be barred," Chemerinsky said. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that "there is 
still a long road with many obstacles before the Rampart plaintiffs can 
recover under RICO."

Hokinson said the city attorney's office would soon file another motion to 
have the RICO claim dismissed on the grounds that the case does not involve 
allegations properly brought under the RICO law.

Columbia University law professor John C. Coffee noted that to win monetary 
awards under RICO, the plaintiffs will have to show that they have been 
injured in their "business or property," unlike cases involving traditional 
charges of excessive force in which damages can be awarded for brutality or 
mental distress.

"That's not a problem," Yagman said. "Our claim is that our clients are 
entitled to damages for lost wages while they were improperly imprisoned" 
after being convicted on false charges.

For example, in the Hunter case, Yagman asserts, his client, 47, lost an 
average of $43,000 a year in wages as a truck driver for the four years he 
was improperly imprisoned. Those damages could be tripled under the RICO law.

Hunter, a Vietnam veteran with a drug record, was sentenced to five years 
in prison in August 1992 after pleading guilty to one felony charge of 
possessing cocaine for sale.

Hunter faced a longer stretch in prison if he risked going to trial.

Legal experts have estimated that the city ultimately could be liable for 
more than $100 million in total damages as a result of the Rampart scandal.

The city attorney's office says 135 Rampart-related cases have been filed 
against the city. The city has paid out $30.1 million in settlements, 
according to figures provided by the office.

About 100 convictions have been overturned, mostly as a result of requests 
to Superior Court judges by the district attorney's office. So far though, 
Hunter's conviction is not among them.

About 70 LAPD officers have come under investigation for committing crimes 
and misconduct in the Rampart scandal or failing to report them.

Eight LAPD officers have been criminally charged with corruption-related 
offenses.

Most recently, Perez's onetime patrol partner, Nino Durden, pleaded guilty 
in state and federal courts to a host of crimes, including the shooting of 
an unarmed man who was then framed for assaulting police.

Last month, an officer pleaded no contest to assault in a 1998 beating, 
while another pleaded no contest to filing a false police report. A third 
officer has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
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