Court Opinion

ID: 9789096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:27:55.856774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:19.496254
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J., Concurring.
I concur in the majority’s narrow holding that “[wjhen complainant information has been ordered disclosed to counsel who, when later representing a different defendant, succeeds under Pitchess [v. Superior Court (1974) 11 Cal.3d 531 [113 Cal.Rptr. 897, 522 P.2d 305]] in discovering the same complainant information relating to the same officer, *683counsel may then refer to the derivative information uncovered as part of the earlier followup investigation.” (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 681, italics added.) After counsel has won a second Pitchess disclosure, involving the same officer and the same complainant information, no purpose of the statutes and protective orders that safeguard confidential police officer personnel records is served by requiring counsel to perform a meaningless duplicate investigation before using, at trial, derivative information counsel already possesses.
However, I do not interpret the majority’s opinion, or its judgment, to imply that counsel may employ information learned as a direct result of the first Pitchess disclosure to support a later request for Pitchess disclosure in a different case. The statutory scheme, and the protective orders issued thereunder, restrict “use of the . . . information [disclosed through a Pitchess motion] to the proceeding in which it was sought.” (Alford v. Superior Court (2003) 29 Cal.4th 1033, 1042 [130 Cal.Rptr.2d 672, 63 P.3d 228], italics added (Alford).) In this context, I see no reason to distinguish between direct and derivative “use.” Otherwise counsel could win Pitchess disclosure against an officer in one case, obtain derivative information as a result, then invade the hapless officer’s confidential file again and again, in circumvention of Alford, simply by bringing an infinite number of subsequent Pitchess motions, using the previously obtained information to demonstrate the need for new disclosure.
As Alford explained, the statutes’ “careful[] balancing] [of] peace officers’ privacy interests in their personnel records against defendants’ rights of access to information relevant to their defense” requires that Pitchess disclosure be ordered “only on a showing of materiality to a particular case.” (Alford, supra, 29 Cal.4th at p. 1042, italics added.) To establish such materiality, and obtain in camera inspection of the officer’s files, the defendant need only present a “plausible factual foundation” for a claim that, in his or her case, the officer lied or committed other relevant misconduct. (Warrick v. Superior Court (2005) 35 Cal.4th 1011, 1025 [29 Cal.Rptr.3d 2, 112 P.3d 2].) The in camera determination whether the files contain relevant and discloseable information should similarly be guided by the circumstances of the particular case in which disclosure is sought. Accordingly, the statutory balance would be upset by allowing counsel to “pile on” against the officer by using, in later Pitchess proceedings, information obtained as the result of an earlier Pitchess disclosure.
On the assumption that the majority opinion and judgment are thus circumscribed, I concur in both.