Complaint Alleges High-Level Staff Knew Gangs of Deputies Beat Inmates and Condoned Cover-Ups

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Southern California (ACLU/SC) and attorneys from Paul Hastings, LLP today filed a federal class action lawsuit charging Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and his top command staff with condoning a long-standing, widespread pattern of violence by deputies against inmates in the Los Angeles County Jails.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of two named plaintiffs, Alex Rosas and Jonathan Goodwin, who were savagely beaten and threatened with violence by deputies of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (L.A.S.D.) while they were pretrial detainees in the jail. As detailed in the complaint, the treatment of Rosas and Goodwin is not isolated – there are dozens of reports of similar brutality in the jails. The lawsuit seeks both injunctive and declaratory relief on behalf of all present and future inmates of the jails.

“Sheriff Lee Baca, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, and Chief Dennis Burns are responsible for ensuring that their subordinates do not engage in a pattern of unspeakable acts of violence against inmates,” said Peter Eliasberg, legal director of the ACLU/SC. “But in the face of a longstanding pattern of deputy abuse they have deliberately and knowingly failed to put in place the basic pieces of an accountability system – sound policies on the use of force, adequate training, careful investigation of force incidents and a rigorous system of discipline. This suit is directed at them because they have allowed deputies to go unpunished, covered up their behavior and for years made no effort to reform this broken system.”

Los Angeles County has the largest jail system in the nation, with an average daily population of 15,000 inmates. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, charges that Baca and his command staff had full knowledge of this pattern of violence, and sought to conceal it from the public. The suit alleges violations of the inmates’ rights under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, and pretrial detainees’ rights under the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition of punishment prior to conviction.

“A sick culture of deputy-on-inmate hyper-violence has been flourishing for decades in the darkness of the L.A. County Jails, and this lawsuit will continue to help expose that culture to the light of day,” said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “Because Sheriff Baca has recently taken an important first step -- publicly admitting there’s an enormous problem and expressing his commitment to reform -- we hope the sheriff and the ACLU will be able to reach a court-ordered injunction that will bring about profound and far-reaching changes.”

In September 2011, the ACLU issued a report documenting more than 70 recent cases of extreme deputy violence, and shortly thereafter the public learned the FBI had launched a far-reaching criminal probe into deputy-on-inmate violence in the county jails. In December 2011, the county Board of Supervisors convened a commission to investigate and make recommendations.

In addition to ACLU lawyers, a team of Paul Hastings attorneys led by Donna Melby and John Durrant will provide pro bono legal assistance to the plaintiffs in this case.

“We are honored to partner with the ACLU in bringing this worthy lawsuit,” said Durrant. “What we are talking about here goes well beyond having a ‘tough’ jail. There is a well-documented, chronic problem of brutality in the jails that must be redressed.”

To view complaint go to: www.aclusocal.org/rosas.

Students with tickets for being late to school faced hundreds of dollars in fines and were forced to miss more school time to appear in court.

Now Los Angeles’ top judge for juvenile courts has released new guidelines to eliminate fines and unnecessary court time for students who were late to school and for other minor offenses. The court will also direct students who miss school to school- and community-based resources that are shown to improve academic achievement and get struggling students back on track.

It’s the latest step forward to reforming Los Angeles daytime curfew rules and truancy ticketing. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles School Police Department, the nation’s largest school police force, adopted new procedures to reduce the number of tickets written to students on their way to school and put parents, students and schools, not police and courts, in charge of school attendance.

Data collected by Public Counsel, the ACLU of Southern California, and the Community Rights Campaign shows that truancy and tardy ticketing unfairly and disproportionately targets African American and Latino students and their families, and results in more student time out of school and significant financial burdens on low-income families. 

The significant reforms reflect the input from students, parents, civil rights attorneys and teachers who testified and provided data and information through the Student Attendance Task Force and a community town hall last fall.

Under the rules released by Juvenile Court Presiding Judge Michael Nash on January 3, 2012, courts will now dismiss all tickets where the evidence shows the student was late to school or en route to school. Students with real attendance problems will have 60 days to show they are committed to improvement and to enroll in and complete services that help them get back on track in school.  

“Too many students are caught in a vicious cycle – facing hundreds of dollars in accumulated fines they can’t afford, and having to miss even more school to go to court,” said Laura Faer, Director of Education Rights at Public Counsel. “Judge Nash’s approach is not only visionary, it is sane, humane, and it’s going to be more effective for student success in the long run. This is a breakthrough model for other courts to follow.” 

“Judge Nash has taken real leadership by listening to the students and parents of color most harmed by truancy ticketing,” said Manuel Criollo, lead organizer for Community Rights Campaign. “His court is a model for community engagement.”

“It’s common sense that the best place for students to be during the school day is at school,” said David Sapp, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. “Minimizing the amount of school time that students must miss to deal with citations for minor offenses is a major step forward.”

Los Angeles Councilman Tony Cárdenas, who has been working for the last two years to reform the city’s student truancy policies, also applauded Judge Nash’s announcement.

“Judge Nash’s actions provide a tremendous benefit to our school districts, the city and county because it is the right way to work on the issue of student truancy,” Councilman Cárdenas said. “These changes will now give the proper professionals the opportunity to work with our children, get them back in school and on the right track.”

The new guidelines give students the ability to develop an attendance improvement plan with their parents and schools and complete hours in tutoring, mentoring, credit recovery, and drop-out prevention programs that will help them get back on track in school. Youth who face penalties from prior tickets or for minor offenses can now ask the court to dismiss the fines and give them community service instead.

The rules affect youth in the Informal Juvenile and Traffic Court section of Los Angeles Superior Court, which handle youth traffic offenses and other minor offenses such as transit fare evasion. Research shows that involving young people who are struggling in school in the juvenile justice system actually results in a far higher likelihood that they will drop out of school altogether.