One of the more interesting moments in Friday’s meeting of the Citizen’s Committee on Jail Violence came when Richard Drooyan, the General Counsel for the Commission, gave his report.
Drooyan, a former Chief of the Criminal Division in the US Attorney’s Office in LA, now in private practice, (and was also was a counsel for the Christopher Commission, among other relevant posts), is the person overseeing the teams of attorneys who will act as the detectives, so to speak, tasked with doing the actual investigating work for the Commission.
Drooyan reported that, thus far, he has 15 attorneys lined up (“most of them former assistant U.S. attorneys”) who are divided into five teams of three “All these attorneys are pro bono,” Drooyan explained. “And all of them have started to recruit attorneys in their firms…. (who would also be pro bono. “All of them are anxious to get going.”
There was, however, one hiccup, that was holding up the start of the investigation, said Drooyan.
It seems that an attorney for the sheriff’s deputies union (presumably ALADS,) told Sheriff Baca who, in turn, informed Drooyan, that the Commission cannot have access to jail records—specifically personnel and disciplinary records—“because it is against state law.” (This means the Public Safety Officers Bill of Rights and a controversial 2006 California Supreme Court decision.)
Drooyan, however, argued otherwise, saying that the LA County Supervisors are legally able to look at such documents in a secure setting, and that the Supes may extend their powers to the Commission and its legal designates.
Drooyan made it clear to the Commission that the investigators cannot possibly do their jobs without this material. [Note: The commission isn’t interested in probing the actions of individual deputies, but is looking for patterns within the jails—both in terms of deputy actions, and how supervisors responded to those actions.]
(Such records were considered significant during the Christopher Commission’s investigations and during the probe into police misconduct during the Rampart era.)
“If we don’t have access to personnel and disciplinary records,” he said firmly, “then we’re going to have to go to court to get access. So that may take a little longer [than anticipated].”
Drooyan was careful to spell out the fact that the confidential reports will be looked at only within protected circumstances. For instance, the investigators will only have hard copies, he said. “Nothing electronic.” And those copies will be kept under lock and key and looked at by the investigators only in one secure location. Again, he warned that getting them may be a legal battle, that the union may try to file an injunction.
Otherwise, he said, “we’ll be ready to start interviewing and reviewing documents next week—but that’s assuming we can get documents.”
(I’ll keep you posted on this.)
In addition, Drooyan revisited the issue of confidentially for witnesses. “We are going to try to maintain confidentiality for those witnesses who ask for confidentiality,” he said. “But we can’t guarantee it.” However, the Commission would guarantee to leave the names of people wishing confidentiality out of reports and documents. However, if those names ever became relevant to future court proceedings, he said, then the commission would have to fork them over.
The next meeting was set fir 10 am on March 2, at which time the Commission will start hearing from witnesses.
AND IN OTHER NEWS….
AN OP ED IN MONDAY’S WA PO DECLARES CITIZENS UNITED A “CATASTROPHE.”
E.J. Dionne writes in Monday’s Washington Post that this election season is proving the controversial decision to be a disaster for democracy. Here’s a clip:
….The Citizens United justices were not required to think through the practical consequences of sweeping aside decades of work by legislators, going back to the passage of the landmark Tillman Act in 1907, who sought to prevent untoward influence-peddling and indirect bribery.
If ever a court majority legislated from the bench (with Bush’s own appointees leading the way), it was the bunch that voted for Citizens United. Did a single justice in the majority even imagine a world of super PACs and phony corporations set up for the sole purpose of disguising a donor’s identity? Did they think that a presidential candidacy might be kept alive largely through the generosity of a Las Vegas gambling magnate with important financial interests in China? Did they consider that the democratizing gains made in the last presidential campaign through the rise of small online contributors might be wiped out by the brute force of millionaires and billionaires determined to have their way?
“The appearance of influence or access, furthermore, will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.” Those were Justice Anthony Kennedy’s words in his majority opinion. How did he know that? Did he consult the electorate? Did he think this would be true just because he said it?
Justice John Paul Stevens’ observation in his dissent reads far better than Kennedy’s in light of subsequent events. “A democracy cannot function effectively,” he wrote, “when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”
WONDER DOGS AND TROUBLED KIDS
There is a story in Sunday’s NY Times that is a genuine must read. It’s about an American couple who adopted two Russian kids, a boy and a girl. What they were not told by the adoption agency was that the boy was suffering with a severe case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
As the boy—Iyal— got worse and worse, his parents tried everything they could think of to help him with little affect. Finally they heard about a woman who’d had luck training service dogs for autistic kids and other children with disabilities. (The trainer had her own personal miracle story, involving a service dog helping her turn her own health and well being around.)
Anyway, Chancer the big, cheerful golden retriever became Iyal’s dog…. And managed to break through to the kid in a way that nothing else had.
Iyal wasn’t cured, of course. He never will be. But the difference a dog made in one boy’s life was—and is—profound.
It’s a great story and you can read itself yourself right here.