SAN FRANCISCO _ The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and other law enforcement agencies may disclose to prosecutors a deputy's history of misconduct when that deputy plans to testify in a criminal case.
The decision overturned a Court of Appeal ruling that barred the sheriff from giving prosecutors the names of deputies who have committed misconduct, including lying, taking bribes, tampering with evidence, using unreasonable force or engaging in domestic violence.
By law, prosecutors are required to disclose to defendants exculpatory evidence, including information that could diminish the credibility of police officers who worked on a case.
District attorneys, defense lawyers and the California attorney general have backed giving prosecutors the information to fulfill their constitutional duty to disclose potentially exonerating information.
The case before the court stemmed from a lawsuit filed by the L.A. deputies' union to prevent former Sheriff Jim McDonnell from turning over to the district attorney about 300 names of deputies with a history of misconduct.
A divided, Los Angeles-based court of appeal ruled in 2017 that the list must be kept secret, even in pending criminal cases in which errant deputies were expected to testify.
The case pits the privacy rights of law enforcement officers against the constitutional duty of prosecutors to give the defense evidence that might cast doubt on a defendant's guilt, reduce a potential sentence or diminish the credibility of prosecution witnesses.
That duty stems from a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case, Brady v. Maryland, which said suppression of evidence favorable to the defense violated due process.
At issue is only whether the names can be turned over to prosecutors, not whether they would become public.
But the presence of the names on a list means deputies could be one step closer to having their disciplinary files scrutinized by a judge and their police work called into question during a court proceeding.
Under the system in place for four decades, defense attorneys and prosecutors may ask a trial judge to review an officer's personnel file to determine whether there is evidence that must be disclosed.
But without knowing an officer's history, a defense lawyer may not be able to persuade the judge to undertake a review
Police departments in at least a dozen counties, including San Francisco, Sacramento and Ventura, have had a regular practice of sending prosecutors the names of so-called Brady list officers.
California's strict laws protecting officer personnel files _ which underpinned the appellate court's ruling for the deputies' union _ were dramatically altered by a new transparency law that opened up records of confirmed cases of lying and sexual misconduct by officers, as well as shootings and serious uses of force.
SB 1421, which went into effect Jan. 1, allows the public to see many of the documents at issue in the L.A. sheriff's case.
But the new law does not apply to the broader range of misconduct that could put an officer on a Brady list, including domestic abuse, sexual harassment, racial discrimination and bribery.
A Times investigation found the sheriff's department kept a secret list of problem deputies for years but it was never turned over to prosecutors.
