The prosecution of a former special advisor in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office for allegedly inappropriately accessing information on possible sheriff deputies’ misconduct is hampering the work of civilian police oversight boards, an amicus brief states.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is prosecuting former Assistant District Attorney Diana Teran for allegedly accessing publicly available court records about sheriff’s deputies whose past misconduct might compromise the credibility of prosecution witnesses – an action that members of the Civilian Oversight Commission (COC) for the county’s Sheriff’s Department say is chilling efforts to hold law enforcement personnel accountable.
Two attorneys serving on the COC, Robert Bonner and Sean Kennedy, filed an amicus brief on Feb. 17 that urges the Second District Appeals Court to issue an order ending the prosecution of Ternan.
But that brief was opposed by the Los Angeles county counsel, Dawyn Harrison, who sent a letter to the appeals court urging judges to ignore the COC members’ amicus brief, arguing that the brief contained misrepresentations.
Harrison’s actions then spurred Kennedy to submit a resignation letter with the county Board of Supervisors, contending that the county counsel’s actions have made legitimate civilian oversight of the Sheriff’s Department impossible.
“The county counsel threatening to report me to the court for making ‘misrepresentations’ because I filed an amicus brief regarding oversight issues – after public debate and a unanimous (commission) vote – crossed a personal red line,” Kennedy said in the letter.
Teran has been accused by prosecutors of illegally assessing the Sheriff’s Department’s confidential database to obtain information on certain deputies. But her supporters argue that Teran was simply fulfilling her role with the District Attorney’s Office under former District Attorney George Gascon. Teran was attempting to ensure that the District Attorney’s Office had the ability to disclose material exculpatory evidence that could impeach the credibility of prosecution witnesses, in accordance with the Brady v. Maryland U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1963, according to the COC amicus brief application.
“Teran’s good-faith efforts to update the District Attorney’s Brady database and ensure full compliance with the office’s constitutional obligations should be lauded, not criminalized,” the brief application states. “Nor should the (Sheriff’s Department’s) leadership be allowed to cynically use this misguided prosecution to escape meaningful civilian oversight.”
The group Fair and Just Prosecution has also challenged the reasoning behind the prosecution of Teran.
“It's hard to look at this case and not conclude that it may have a chilling effect on prosecutors doing their jobs, or that the state AG's charges are not going to have a negative spill-over effect on law enforcement oversight,” the group’s spokesman, Christopher Gray, told the Southern California Record in an email.
Commission member Bonner has accused the Sheriff’s Department of blocking the release of confidential documents sought by the COC, citing concerns that such a disclosure could result in more charges filed by the state Attorney General’s Office. The result is that the COC is hampered from performing its voter-approved oversight of the department, he said.
The Board of Supervisors created the COC in 2016 as a law enforcement accountability measure, and county voters passed a measure four years later to give the panel more investigative authority and subpoena powers.
The COC last month urged county supervisors to refuse to accept Kennedy’s resignation from the panel.