Opinion ID: 6107678
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Brady List

Text: In late 2016, the Association counted among its members approximately 7,800 deputy sheriffs. The Department sent a letter to roughly 300 of those deputies, informing them that a review of individual employees' personnel records had identified potential exculpatory or impeachment  information in your personnel file. Among other things, the letter served to remind deputies about the existence of this material. According to the letter, [e]xamples of performance deficiencies that qualify as potential Brady material include, but are not limited to, founded administrative investigations involving violations of any of nearly a dozen sections of the Department's Manual of Policy and Procedures. Those sections concern:  (1) Immoral Conduct; (2) Bribes, Rewards, Loans, Gifts, Favors; (3) Misappropriation of Property; (4) Tampering with Evidence; (5) False Statements; (6) Failure to make Statements and/or Making False Statements During Departmental Internal Investigations; (7) Obstructing an Investigation/Influencing a Witness; (8) False Information in Records; (9) Policy of Equality - Discriminatory Harassment; (10) Unreasonable Force; and (11) Family Violence. Notwithstanding the letter's claim that such violations were mere [e]xamples of performance deficiencies that might justify inclusion on the Brady list, other materials in the record suggest that the letter was only sent to deputies understood to have violated at least one of those enumerated policies. The letter further advised deputies that, in order to comply with our constitutional obligations, the Department is required to provide the names of employees with potential exculpatory or impeachment material in their personnel file to the District Attorney and other prosecutorial agencies where the employee may be called as a witness. Later correspondence indicated that the deputy's employee number might also be provided. Consistent with that later correspondence, however, the initial letter stressed that no portion of an investigation or contents of your file will be turned over to either the prosecution or the defense absent a court order. Deputies were also afforded an opportunity to object to their inclusion on the Brady list, by informing the  Department that the deputy did not have a founded administrative investigation finding on one of the above policy violations or that any such founded investigation had been overturned in a settlement agreement or pursuant to an appeal.