"The uncovering of a pattern of deception, perjury and evidence planting by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department is shocking, but sadly not surprising. In the same manner in which the videotaped beating of Rodney King shed light on police brutality, this investigation is certain to illuminate a terrible, but not so secret fact; that the LAPD cannot be trusted to investigate itself.

"Los Angeles must return to the findings of the Christopher Commission. The need for effective training and accountability are now surpassed only by the urgency to once and for all end the code of silence. We call on Mayor Riordan and the City Council to establish an independent prosecutor, not only to prosecute those whose actions have tarnished the reputation of the LAPD, but to investigate all future police shootings. The trampling of justice we are witnessing today must never again be allowed to occur."

The ACLU today applauded Governor Davis for signing into law a bill that reverses the California Supreme Court's June 1, 1999 decision in Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court (Molloy). The ACLU's of Southern and Northern California, along with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, the First Amendment Project, and Equal Rights Advocates, represented the UC Santa Barbara Daily Nexus and one of its student reporters, Tim Molloy, in this case.

The Regents case challenged the UC Regents' actions in approving resolutions banning affirmative action. In July 1995, the UC Regents, led by former Governor Wilson, approved two resolutions abolishing affirmative action at the University. After a several month investigation uncovered evidence of an Open Meeting Act violation, the ACLU and other civil liberties organizations brought suit, alleging that Governor Wilson had illegally locked up the vote ahead of time.

Although lower courts had allowed this lawsuit to proceed to trial, Governor Wilson and the Regents appealed to the California Supreme Court. In its June 1, 1999 ruling, the California Supreme Court reversed the lower courts. It held that Mr. Molloy and the Nexus could not pursue any relief for a past violation of the Open Meeting Act. On September 15, 1999, Governor Davis signed into law AB 1234. This law states the California legislature's express intent "to supersede the decision of the California Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court (Molloy) (1999) 20 Cal. 4th 509. In particular, AB 1234 specifically allows lawsuits to be brought, alleging past violations of the Open Meeting Act.

"This new law vindicates the principle for which we have long fought: That public officials must be held accountable to the people they serve," said ACLU staff attorney Dan Tokaji, who argued the Regents case before the California Supreme Court. "Public officials can no longer act in secret, hide their wrongdoing for 30 days, and then get away with it, as former Governor Wilson and the UC Regents sought to do. This is a great victory for all of us who believe that government should conduct its business in the light of day."

'Mr. Pratt's fight for justice will continue' In an important development in the civil rights suit brought by former Black Panther party leader Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt, a federal district judge said today that she would permit the case to proceed, and that she was rejecting efforts by the defendants to have the case thrown out. Judge Christine Snyder said that it would be 'improvident' to dismiss the case at this point.

Mr. Pratt, who spent nearly three decades behind bars, is alleging that his conviction and life sentence for a 1968 murder was the result of a conspiracy by federal and local law enforcement agents. In 1997, Pratt's conviction was invalidated by a California state court that held he had not received a fair trial because evidence had been withheld. It was revealed that the star witness against him, Julius Butler, was a confidential informant for the Los Angeles Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That piece of evidence, along with a startling array of additional information that surfaced after three decades, has cast new light on the actions of the LAPD, FBI, and Mr. Butler. It is these ties, Pratt alleges in his civil rights suit, that resulted in a coordinated campaign against him.

Defendants in the suit are the city of Los Angeles, five retired LAPD officers, seven former FBI agents, and Julius Butler. Each of the defendants filed motions to dismiss the case on various grounds. As co-counsel for Pratt in the civil right suit, the ACLU filed papers that declared that the motions to dismiss 'cobbled together a string of painfully weak arguments' in which the defendants had 'misstated, mangled, and ignored fundamental legal principles.'

'We are pleased that Judge Snyder recognized the patent deficiencies in the motions to dismiss this case,' said ACLU-SC Chief Counsel Michael Small. 'As a result of today's ruling, Geronimo Pratt's fight for justice will continue.'

In addition to the ACLU, Pratt is also represented by Johnnie L. Cochrane, who was Pratt's lawyer at his original trial, and Stuart Hanlon, a San Francisco civil rights lawyer, who has been part of Pratt's legal team for over a quarter-century.