Judge Orders OCDA to Release Hundreds of Documents
SANTA ANA – In a rebuke to Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, an OC Superior Court judge ruled today that Spitzer unlawfully withheld crucial records related to the California Racial Justice Act (RJA)—a groundbreaking law designed to prevent racial bias in the criminal legal system.
The ruling comes after a 2022 lawsuit filed by Chicanxs Unidxs de Orange County, the ACLU Foundations of Northern and Southern California and the Peace and Justice Law Center challenged Spitzer’s refusal to release prosecutorial data, policies and training materials as a violation of the Public Records Act.
“Todd Spitzer dismissed this lawsuit as ‘frivolous’ and ‘completely divorced from reality,’ but the court has now made it clear—the only thing frivolous were his excuses for hiding the truth,” said Sean Garcia-Leys, executive director of the Peace and Justice Law Center and attorney for Chicanxs Unidxs. “Spitzer fought to keep this data from public view, but today’s ruling confirms what many in our community have long known: he is more interested in covering up racial injustice than correcting it.”
The court also recognized that DA Spitzer “had a policy of not complying with the Public Records Act regarding requests that required extraction of data from existing records.”
This policy was in place from at least March 2021 until August 2023, when the court issued a tentative ruling that the DA was violating the law. In December 2023, in response to the litigation, DA Spitzer began publishing prosecutorial data on the OCDA’s website.
But DA Spitzer continued to illegally withhold hundreds of critical documents—until the court intervened. In today’s order, the judge also demanded the release of many of these records, either in full or in part.
“The judge’s order directly contradicts Spitzer’s repeated claims that his office complies with the law,” said Eva Bitrán, director of immigrants’ rights at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California and attorney for plaintiffs in the case. “Instead, the court found that the OCDA had a deliberate policy of refusing to follow the Public Records Act with respect to data requests, keeping vital racial justice data hidden from the public and criminal defense attorneys seeking to challenge discriminatory prosecutions.”
The newly released data is already being used by the OC Public Defender’s Office to support RJA claims and may now be analyzed by the ACLU and the Peace and Justice Law Center to further expose racial disparities in prosecutions.
“The judge’s order exposes what Spitzer had long denied: that his office operated with a policy of violating transparency laws, which concealed evidence of racial disparities in prosecutions,” said Emi MacLean, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and attorney for the plaintiffs in the case.
A 2022 ACLU Foundation of Northern California report on the OCDA’s prosecutorial practices previously revealed racial disparities in the office’s charging and diversion practices from 2017 to 2018, when former DA Tony Rackauckas led the office. The report also revealed that, despite DA Spitzer’s unwillingness to provide more recent office data, all available evidence suggested that the office’s racially disparate practices had not changed. Spitzer was the first district attorney in California to be personally found in violation of the RJA in 2022—a fact that underscores the urgent need for prosecutorial transparency.
“Anyone who has ever set foot inside an Orange County jail can see the reality: Black and brown people are disproportionately targeted and jailed,” said Gaby Hernandez of Chicanxs Unidxs. “Spitzer’s reaction to this lawsuit shows exactly where his priorities lie. Instead of addressing these racial disparities, he’s spent years illegally hiding the evidence. Now, the truth is finally out.”
Read the order: https://www.aclusocal.org/sites/default/files/chicanxsunidxsvspitzer_minuteorder_ocsuperiorcourt_3.20.25.pdf