Opinion ID: 2519810
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Constitutionality of Section 1045's Five Year Limitation Upon Disclosure

Text: As discussed earlier, the high court in Brady, supra, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215, held that an accused is denied due process when the prosecution fails to disclose to the defense evidence that is favorable to the defendant and material on the issue of guilt. Our statutory scheme does not require disclosure of complaints of police officer misconduct that occurred more than five years before the crime with which the defendant is charged. Defendant here contends that section 1045(b)(1)'s time limitation is contrary to Brady and therefore violates his constitutional right to due process. As we explain, the time limitation is not unconstitutional on its face. To prevail on his constitutional claim, defendant carries a heavy burden. The courts will presume a statute is constitutional unless its unconstitutionality clearly, positively, and unmistakably appears; all presumptions and intendments favor its validity. ( People v. Falsetta (1999) 21 Cal.4th 903, 912-913, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182; see also People v. Hansel (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1211, 1219, 4 Cal.Rptr.2d 888, 824 P.2d 694.) When, as here, the contention is that a state rule violates due process, the defendant must show that the rule offends some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental. ( People v. Falsetto, supra, 21 Cal.4th at p. 913, 89 Cal.Rptr.2d 847, 986 P.2d 182; accord, Montana v. Egelhoff (1996) 518 U.S. 37, 43, 116 S.Ct. 2013, 135 L.Ed.2d 361 (plur. opn. of Scalia, J.); Patterson v. New York (1977) 432 U.S. 197, 201-202, 97 S.Ct. 2319, 53 L.Ed.2d 281.) Fundamental principles of justice are those that `lie at the base of our civil and political institutions' and `define the community's sense of fair play and decency.' ( Dowling v. United States (1990) 493 U.S. 342, 353, 110 S.Ct. 668, 107 L.Ed.2d 708.) We are not persuaded that fundamental principles of justice are implicated by section 1045(b)(1), under which there is no statutory right to disclosure of citizen complaints of police misconduct that occurred more than five years before the charged crime. The discovery procedure of which section 1045(b)(1) is a part is a legislative enactment of rather recent vintage. Although there is no general constitutional right to discovery in a criminal case ( Weatherford v. Bursey (1977) 429 U.S. 545, 559, 97 S.Ct. 837, 51 L.Ed.2d 30), beginning in 1974, our Legislature required California law enforcement agencies to establish a procedure to investigate citizens' complaints against officers in their employ. (Pen.Code, § 832.5, subd. (a).) The Pitchess procedures not only require law enforcement agencies to compile citizen complaints, but they also contemplate the destruction of such complaints after five years. (Pen.Code, § 832.5, subd. (b) [requiring retention of citizen complaints for at least five years].) Many if not most law enforcement agencies have a policy of routinely destroying citizen complaints after five years. (See People v. Jackson (1996) 13 Cal.4th 1164, 1221, fn. 10, 56 Cal.Rptr.2d 49, 920 P.2d 1254, 83 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 103 (2000).) Section 1045(b)(1)'s five-year cutoff for discovery of police officer personnel records mirrors the five-year cutoff for retention of citizen complaints under Penal Code section 832.5. (Assem. Com. on Criminal Justice, Analysis of Proposed Draft of Sen. Bill No. 1436 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) Aug. 28, 1978, p. 6 [five-year retention period intended to conform to the five-year period of discovery].) The parallel five-year periods may well reflect legislative recognition that after five years a citizen's complaint of officer misconduct has lost considerable relevance. A law enforcement agency's destruction of a citizen's complaint violates a defendant's right to due process only when the complaint's exculpatory value to a particular criminal case is readily apparent before its destruction. { California v. Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. at p. 488, 104 S.Ct. 2528.) The mere possibility that the complaint might be exculpatory in some future case is insufficient. ( Arizona v. Youngblood, supra, 488 U.S. at p. 56, fn. , 109 S.Ct. 333.) Unless there is bad faith by the law enforcement agency, the destruction of records does not implicate a defendant's constitutional right to a fair trial; routine destruction by a law enforcement agency acting ... `in accord with [its] normal practice' tends to indicate `good faith.' ( California v. Trombetta, supra, at p. 488, 104 S.Ct. 2528, quoting Killian v. U.S. (1961) 368 U.S. 231, 242, 82 S.Ct. 302, 7 L.Ed.2d 256.) Just as due process does not prohibit a law enforcement agency from destroying records of citizen complaints that are more than five years old and whose exculpatory value to a specific case is not readily apparent, section 1045(b)(1)'s five-year limitation on court-ordered discovery of such complaints does not, on its face, violate due process. State rules excluding evidence at trial deny a criminal defendant due process only if those rules offend fundamental principles of justice. ( Patterson v. New York, supra, 432 U.S. at pp. 201-202, 97 S.Ct. 2319.) Applying that standard to the pretrial discovery scheme of section 1045(b)(1), we perceive no fundamental principle of justice that is offended by that provision's prohibition against disclosing citizen complaints of officer misconduct that were filed more than five years before the proceeding in which disclosure is sought. In holding that routine record destruction after five years does not deny defendants due process, we do not suggest that a prosecutor who discovers facts underlying an old complaint of officer misconduct, records of which have been destroyed, has no Brady disclosure obligation. At oral argument, the Attorney General, appearing as amicus curiae on behalf of the City, agreed that, regardless of whether records have been destroyed, the prosecutor still has a duty to seek and assess such information and to disclose it if it is constitutionally material. [2] We also reject defendant's contention that section 1045(b)(1)'s limitation on disclosure of citizen complaints more than five years old violates the supremacy clause of the federal Constitution (see U.S. Const., art. VI, cl. 2) by denying him evidence that might be material under Brady, supra, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215. An issue of federal supremacy arises only when a state law conflicts with some federal law. (See Felder v. Casey (1988) 487 U.S. 131, 138, 108 S.Ct. 2302, 101 L.Ed.2d 123.) Here, defendant contends section 1045(b)(1) conflicts with the federal Constitution's due process clause. But there is no conflict. As we have already explained, section 1045(b)(1) comports on its face with the federal due process requirements. The dissent charges the majority with not addressing the issue of destroying sustained citizen complaints. (Dis. opn., post, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 223, 52 P.3d at p. 146.) It reasons that a sustained complaint, which contains an allegation of officer misconduct that the employing police agency has found true, possesses exculpatory value to any particular case in which that officer is a material witness. ( Id. 124 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 223, 52 P.3d at p. 146.) In the dissent's view, the systematic destruction of five-year-old sustained citizen complaints by an employing police agency violates the due process rights of unknown future defendants against whom the officer may someday testify. We disagree. As the high court explained in California v. Trombetta, supra, 467 U.S. 479, 489, 104 S.Ct. 2528, 81 L.Ed.2d 413, due process is implicated by the prosecution's failure to retain evidence only when the exculpatory value of that evidence to a specific defendant is apparent before the evidence is destroyed. Some of the dissent's disagreement with the majority reflects a basic misunderstanding of the workings of the statutory Pitchess discovery scheme. For instance, the dissent asserts that a citizen complaint might not be available for discovery until well after the five-year period begins to run, because of delay caused by investigation and by provisions in the Government Code requiring officers be shown adverse comments to be placed in their personnel files and allowing them 30 days to file written responses to such comments. (Dis. opn., post, 124 Cal.Rptr.2d at p. 218, 52 P.3d at p. 142.) But the Pitchess scheme does not delay discovery of citizen complaints until an investigation is completed or even until the officer has filed his response. Rather, when the proper showing is made, citizen complaints are discoverable even if the investigation of those complaints is still incomplete. (§ 1043; Pen.Code, § 832.5, subds. (b) & (c).)