SUPREME COURT ALLOWS PITCHESS DISCOVERY IN DISCIPLINE APPEAL HEARINGS
Today the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited opinion in Riverside County Sheriff's Department v. Stiglitz. Holding that Pitchess procedures apply in administrative hearings, the Court has now guaranteed that peace officers appealing disciplinary actions throughout the State are provided a fair opportunity to raise the defense of disparate treatment by permitting the acquisition of relevant information supporting that defense from confidential personnel records maintained by the employing agency. Departments now can no longer hide behind the ubiquitous claim of "confidentiality" when an officer attempts to prove that s/he is being treated more harshly than others who engaged in similar acts of misconduct.
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Background
The Riverside County Sheriff's Department fired Deputy Kristy Drinkwater for falsifying her payroll forms. The parties chose arbitrator Jan Stiglitz to hear the termination appeal. At the hearing, Drinkwater intended to present a disparate treatment defense, contending that others in the Department had committed similar misconduct but were not fired. Accordingly, she sought discovery of the personnel records of eleven department members who allegedly committed misconduct similar to that which she had been charged, but received little or no discipline. After the arbitrator ordered that Drinkwater receive the requested records, the Department sought a writ of administrative mandate alleging that the hearing officer had no authority to require production of those requested records |
The Pitchess Statutes
In 1978, after the California Supreme Court ruled that a criminal defendant could discover prior complaints about an officer's use of excessive force, the California Legislature enacted several laws to restrict access to peace officer personnel records. Penal Code sections 832.7 and 832.8 established the confidentiality of peace officer personnel records, and required that a party seeking personnel records first file a Pitchess motion - named after the 1978 Supreme Court case - before receiving access to confidential personnel file information. The Pitchess motion procedures were codified in Evidence Code section 1043, which requires that a party "file a written motion with the appropriate court or administrative body" setting out the relevance of the records to the subject matter of the pending litigation. If good cause and relevance are shown, then under Evidence Code section 1045, "the court" shall examine the records and determine what, if anything, should be disclosed, and under what conditions. The Dispute
The City argued that only a court, not an administrative hearing officer, could determine whether the records requested by Kristy Drinkwater should be disclosed. That argument was rooted in the plain language of the Pitchess procedures. The City argued that while Evidence Code section 1043 allows a party seeking discovery of peace officer personnel records to "file a written motion with the appropriate "court or administrative body", once filed the motion procedures are governed by Evidence Code section 1045, which expressly states that it a "court" that must examine the records before determining what, if anything, is to be disclosed. Based on the use of only the word "court" and not the phrase "administrative hearing officer," an administrative hearing officer like Stiglitz could not issue a production order.
The Supreme Court found the City's argument unpersuasive for several reasons, but most significantly because of the incongruity it would cause: a peace officer appealing discipline could file Pitchess motion but the hearing officer would be unable to act on such a motion. The court stated: "the Legislature could not have intended to provide for the idle act of filing ineffectual motions."
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The Ruling
The Supreme Court held that by expressly allowing Pitchess motions to be filed with an appropriate administrative body under Evidence Code section 1043, the Legislature contemplated that the administrative hearing officers would have the authority to rule on those motions effectively. As a result, such motions are permitted, and the orders issued by administrative hearing officers are both authorized and enforceable. Click here to read full decision |
