Pubdate: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Copyright: 2005 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.uniontrib.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386 Note: Source rarely prints LTEs received from outside its circulation area Author: Mark Arner SECRECY OVER SHERIFF'S FIRINGS BEING DISPUTED One deputy was fired after admitting he regularly smoked marijuana when he got home from work. Another was fired for dousing a handcuffed inmate with pepper spray. A sergeant was fired after he slammed an inmate's face against a bus. Despite the fact that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department found ample reason to dismiss the three, taxpayers cannot learn more about the cases -- including the officers' identities -- even though an appellate court ruled in September that the public is entitled to such information. County officials and law enforcement groups say that's because the California Supreme Court has agreed to review the appellate court's decision. They said if the high court later rules that disciplinary action is part of a private personnel file, officers whose cases were made public will have been irreparably harmed. The Copley Press, which publishes The San Diego Union-Tribune, disagrees. Scott Wahrenbrock, an attorney representing the newspaper in its battle for more disclosure, said the lack of information is "shocking" and "contrary to an open and free society that gives its citizens the right to scrutinize the conduct of the officials they hire to protect them." He added, "Our country has never tolerated a secret police force, free from public scrutiny." The recent battle over disclosure began after the county Civil Service Commission departed in 2003 from its nearly 70-year practice of holding open hearings for officers appealing disciplinary action. The hearings were among the few ways the public could learn about how law enforcement dealt with members who had been disciplined for wrongdoing. It started when a deputy asked to have his March 20 hearing before the Civil Service Commission closed. His name and the nature of the charges against him were kept from the public. The Copley Press sued. In May 2003, San Diego Superior Court Judge Wayne Peterson ruled that the commission acted properly. The newspaper appealed. On Sept. 16, 2004, the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed Peterson's ruling. Within weeks, the Deputy Sheriffs' Association asked the state Supreme Court to review the case. Meanwhile, taxpayers still are being prevented from learning about disciplined deputies. Since the commission changed its policy and stopped allowing access to its decisions, it has heard 19 cases behind closed doors. The commission recently released more than 300 pages of heavily censored documents pertaining to those 19 cases, but only after receiving a request from the Union-Tribune under the California Public Records Act. It was in those documents that the firings of the three deputies were revealed. One was fired after he told his fiancee in a November 2002 tape-recorded conversation that he often smoked marijuana after work. A sergeant and a deputy were fired last year for abusing inmates in separate incidents at the Central Jail in downtown San Diego. In the first case, a sergeant was fired for slamming an inmate's face against a bus July 2, 2003, an action that resulted in 11 stitches over the inmate's eye. In the second case, a deputy repeatedly doused an inmate's face with pepper spray after handcuffing him Oct. 11, 2003. The spray initially had been used properly to break up a fight between two inmates in a cell. Everett Bobbitt, an attorney representing the Deputy Sheriffs' Association, says peace officers must be held accountable for misconduct, but releasing information that may prove to be false goes too far. "Peace officers attract a lot of publicity when they are accused of misconduct, and they are frequently exonerated," Bobbitt said. "But when they are exonerated, it doesn't attract the same level of attention. The publicity harms their reputations, and I can't get that back for them." Not all officers feel that way. The city of San Diego's Civil Service Commission remains committed to open hearings. "Our hearings have always been public," said Rich Snapper, San Diego's personnel director. "At the point where a hearing is scheduled on a public calendar, the police officer's name is made public, and information, evidence and documents that are introduced at a hearing are also made public." In the past two years, the city's panel has held just one hearing involving officers appealing an official action. The two officers, confident of exoneration, had asked that the hearing remain open so the public would know when their names were cleared. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth