Sheriff Robert Luna sued the county’s Civilian Oversight Commission this week, asking a court to decide whether the department should comply with the commission’s subpoenas requesting information about deputy misconduct and uses of force.
Filed in L.A. County Superior Court, the suit comes after the oversight commission issued subpoenas demanding records relating to three controversial cases in which deputies beat or shot young men. Some of the deputies involved have been fired, barred from being sworn police officers or pleaded guilty to federal crimes.
The department’s response to the subpoenas is due Thursday morning, but the lawsuit filed earlier this week said Luna was unsure whether state laws that keep most police personnel records secret would conflict with legal requirements to obey the commission’s subpoena.
“The Sheriff’s Department is committed to transparency in law enforcement and has worked diligently to partner with the COC,” the department told The Times in an emailed statement. “This complaint is not intended to cause division between county departments, but rather to gain clear guidance on the complex legal issues surrounding what can and cannot be disclosed to the COC moving forward. Without judicial clarification on this long-running disagreement, the Department risks potential criminal charges, civil liability, and erosion of public trust.”
Robert Bonner, the former federal judge who chairs the oversight commission, saw it differently.
“We regret that the Sheriff believes it necessary to sue the Civilian Oversight Commission — the Commission charged with oversight of his department — to seek guidance from the courts,” he told The Times. “We find it curious that the Sheriff chose to do this on the eve of his obligation to respond to three commission subpoenas which seek to compel him and his department to provide reports of use of force against citizens to the commission.”
In early 2020, the Board of Supervisors gave the commission the ability to direct the Office of Inspector General to issue subpoenas. Two months later, amid a series of Sheriff’s Department scandals, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly approved Measure R, giving the commission power to directly subpoena witnesses and records. A few months after that, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law granting subpoena power to oversight bodies statewide.
Over the past few years, the oversight commission has typically requested documents — including those relating to jail deaths, deputy gangs and sexual misconduct — through public records laws. The Sheriff’s Department has turned over records in response to some commission requests, but has resisted others, saying the records in question were confidential. In February, the commission took a stronger approach and issued subpoenas.
One of the subpoenas asks for all investigative materials relating to the killing of Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old who was killed in 2020 by deputies who shot him in the back after a brief foot chase. Both of the deputies involved were later sentenced to federal prison for an unrelated incident in which they admitted to kidnapping and abusing a skateboarder after he yelled at them to stop picking on teens in a Compton park.
Another subpoena sought records in the case of Emmett Brock, a transgender man who was beaten by a Norwalk deputy outside a 7-Eleven in 2023. The incident was caught on camera, and last year Deputy Joseph Benza pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation for using excessive force.
At least eight other deputies were relieved of duty after Benza made several damning allegations in his plea agreement, including claims that numerous other deputies and sergeants had helped cover up his misconduct.
The third subpoena seeks records in connection with the case of Joseph Perez, who was beaten by Industry station sheriff’s deputies in 2020. The department deemed the use of force to be within policy, though Perez disputes that and has since filed suit. The case is still pending.
Each of the three subpoenas signed by Bonner includes an all-caps warning: “DISOBEDIENCE OF THIS SUBPOENA MAY BE PUNISHED AS CONTEMPT BY A COURT. YOU WILL ALSO BE LIABLE FOR THE SUM OF FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND ALL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM YOUR FAILURE TO OBEY.”
The department says some of the records oversight officials have asked for are secret under a state law that makes most kinds of deputy personnel records confidential.
That law, section 832.7 of the California Penal Code, has some exceptions so prosecutors, state oversight officials and grand juries can see confidential records as needed during investigations. But the Sheriff’s Department says the law doesn’t specifically say that Civilian Oversight Commissions are allowed to see those records, and that a court needed to clarify so sheriff’s officials are not held criminally liable for complying.
This isn’t the first time the commission’s subpoena powers have been met with resistance from the Sheriff’s Department. In 2020, when the commission subpoenaed the former sheriff, Alex Villanueva, about his response to COVID-19 in the jail, Villanueva questioned the legality of that move. The dispute ended up in court, and ultimately Villanueva agreed to answer the commission’s questions voluntarily.
When oversight officials issued more subpoenas, Villanueva resisted those as well, resulting in multiple court cases. One of those cases nearly led to a contempt hearing in 2022, but the court called it off after Villanueva’s lawyers asked a higher court to step in.
In late 2023, after he was no longer sheriff, Villanueva finally agreed to testify under oath and answer questions about alleged deputy gangs operating within the department.
In the lawsuit filed this week, the Sheriff’s Department tried to distance itself from Villanueva’s approach, saying it was taking a “markedly different approach” from the prior administration, which “actively resisted COC oversight efforts, requiring the COC at times to seek court intervention to force LASD to comply with requests.”
This story originally appeared on LA Times
