Court weighs S.F. policy on who reviews police files

The state Supreme Court took up a challenge Thursday to San Francisco’s policy on uncovering and disclosing past misconduct by arresting officers, one that relies on Police Department review of officers’ personnel files for evidence that might help criminal defendants.

Lower courts have ruled that the policy created a conflict of interest and instead ordered prosecutors to comb through the confidential files. But the state’s high court, contemplating a standard that would apply throughout California, did not seem inclined to take that route.

The question, raised in a local domestic violence case, requires justices to weigh competing interests: the privacy of police files and the duty of prosecutors, under a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, to turn over evidence that could strengthen a defendant’s case for acquittal.

San Francisco’s policy, adopted after a drug scandal at a police crime laboratory upended numerous criminal cases, requires a Police Department committee to examine personnel files and tell prosecutors if they contain information — an officer’s history of lying in police reports, for example — that might assist the defense. Prosecutors then present the information to a judge, who reviews it in a closed-door hearing.

At least a dozen other California counties have adopted similar procedures, according to city lawyers. Most counties conduct no such reviews and leave it up to defense lawyers to request information on individual officers.

Thursday’s case involved Daryl Lee Johnson, charged in November 2012 with hitting a girl in the head in a San Francisco home. After examining the files of officers in his case, the police review committee provided material on two officers to prosecutors, who turned it over to Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer for review.

Ulmer ruled in January 2014 that police should not be allowed to review their own files and that the district attorney’s office, instead, should inspect the files for records that should be turned over to the defense.

A state appeals court upheld Ulmer’s ruling in August, saying the police review system violated defendants’ constitutional rights — a ruling that would apply to prosecutors in every county, regardless of their current system. The state Supreme Court granted review of San Francisco’s appeal in October, leaving Johnson’s case on hold.

At Thursday’s one-hour hearing in San Francisco, several justices questioned whether prosecutors had the knowledge or the duty to comb through police files for exculpatory evidence.

“Do we think some third-year D.A. is going to know (the significance of the evidence) better than a judge of the Superior Court?” asked Justice Carol Corrigan, a former Alameda County prosecutor and judge.

“Don’t you as defense attorney know your case best? ... Shouldn’t it be left up to you?” to seek disclosure of the evidence, Justice Ming Chin asked Christopher Gauger, a deputy public defender representing Johnson.

Gauger replied that prosecutors are part of the same “team” as police and are in a better position to seek evidence than defense lawyers, who might not know what to ask for.

But he said defenders could live with San Francisco’s system as long as someone, either a police committee or the district attorney, looked at the files and told the defense what they found.

Attorney Michael Fox, defending the rulings by Ulmer and the appeals court, argued that prosecutors have a “constitutional obligation ... to find and disclose” evidence that could assist a defendant, and can’t shift that duty to police or the courts.

A ruling in People vs. Superior Court (Johnson), S221296, is due within 90 days.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @egelko