Oakland

Opinion: City Attorney Should Not Be Allowed to Undermine Police Commission

Published

6 years ago

July 6, 2018

By Larry White |Attorney
Oakland’s City Council is poised to enact an enabling ordinance that would fill in the gaps in Measure LL, which created the Oakland Police Commission and the Civilian Police Review Agency and that was approved by 83 percent of the city’s voters.Our new Police Commission is one of the strongest and most independent civilian oversight bodies in the country. The City Council will take a vote on July 10 that could affirm that independence—or undermine it.

The Coalition for Police Accountability drafted the original City Charter amendment and gave it to the City Council, which made changes and put it on the ballot in 2016.

Unfortunately, the messy process of amending the Charter—the back and forth of compromise and re-drafting the measures, as well as the influence of the police union—resulted in language wasn’t always crystal clear.
At least one important item was left out completely—a civilian Inspector General of the Police Department. Another matter was left murky: can the Commission have its own lawyer, or must its lawyer be under the thumb of the City Attorney?

Although Measure LL twice calls for a “non-City Attorney legal advisor,” City Attorney Barbara Parker says that another section of the Charter overrules the voters’ wishes and makes her the Commission’s legal advisor.
That’s a misreading of the Charter, which gives her office the right to represent the Commission in lawsuits against it but does not require the Commission to request legal advice from her.

Oakland’s Police Department has been under the supervision of a federal judge since 2003. In 2015, Judge Thelton Henderson commissioned attorney Edward Swanson to report on why so many Oakland police officers accused of misconduct were never punished.

Swanson found that the City usually lost the arbitrations that are police officers’ last step in discipline. “Time and again, the City wrote checks to settle civil lawsuits arising out of police misconduct, only to see the City Attorney’s Office fail to uphold discipline for that very same misconduct,” he wrote.

The City Attorney’s office, Swanson charged, failed to prepare cases, delayed in assigning cases to outside counsel, didn’t select outside counsel with police discipline expertise, and failed to prosecute cases vigorously.
The City Attorney’s office didn’t get evidence ahead of time, rarely if ever called civilian witnesses, and didn’t use outside expert witnesses.

Swanson concluded that “the same problems arose again and again—vague policies, incomplete investigations, unprepared attorneys—with nothing done to ensure that the problems were corrected before they arose again.”

Since then, the City Attorney’s office, under intense scrutiny, has somewhat improved its performance. Swanson was still worried. Eventually, Court supervision will end. “The question, then, is how to make sure that when the Court and the key individuals in the City working on discipline have moved on, the discipline system will not revert to its former, ineffectual state,” wrote Swanson.

That was written before the November 2016 vote that created the Oakland Police Commission. The Commission was designed by people who believed that the City of Oakland had failed for many years to effectively oversee the police and that none of the City’s existing institutions were capable of doing so.

The Commission’s sole mission is to oversee the Police Department, to promote constitutional policing that is free of racial bias and to make sure that police misconduct is punished effectively.

Court supervision, even if it lasts for another decade, is temporary. The Police Commission is here to stay.
The battle for effective civilian oversight goes on.

When the City Council considers approving an ordinance with a lawyer and an Inspector General reporting to the Police Commission, we hope they will heed the wish of the voters and make the Police Commission as independent and effective as it was designed to be.

The Council should also go one step further: put on this year’s ballot a clean-up to Measure LL that settles these matters once and for all.

Attorney Larry White is a member of the Oakland Coalition for Police Accountability. He served as a Senior Staff Counsel for the California Department of Insurance from 1992 to 2013. His responsibilities included reviewing and commenting on dozens of pieces of legislation every year as well as drafting new legislation and regulations.

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Faces Around the Bay: Jim Brosnahan, Esq.

James J. Brosnahan, ESQ, an international trial lawyer and trial advocacy teacher, has remained unshaken in his fervent belief in the power of the law to right injustices. Brosnahan has fought to open the legal profession to those previously excluded and worked to provide lawyers to the millions who go without.

Published

3 hours ago

May 3, 2024

Oakland Post

By Barbara Fluhrer “Isn’t this what old men are supposed to do… sit on a bench in the park?”

By Barbara Fluhrer

James J. Brosnahan, ESQ, an international trial lawyer and trial advocacy teacher, has remained unshaken in his fervent belief in the power of the law to right injustices.

Brosnahan has fought to open the legal profession to those previously excluded and worked to provide lawyers to the millions who go without. He has argued for the administrators of justice to represent the whole community. He’s tried 150 cases to conclusion and is ranked among the top 30 trial lawyers in the U.S. (Legal 500 US). He’s been called “scrappy,” “a lion in the courtroom,” and “ultra- liberal.”

One of his earliest cases (1962) involved two Navajo children shot by a White man on a reservation in Arizona. “The legal system needed to work as well for Native Americans as for White people,” he said. “The defendant was found guilty of second-degree murder.”

In 1963, U.S. Attorney Cecil Poole hired him as U.S. Attorney from a list of 200 applicants.

He and Poole, as federal observers, led the Vietnam protesters as they marched. The purpose: to avoid violence.

“Poole taught me preventative law in a chaotic situation and became one of my strongest mentors,” remembers Brosnahan.

In 1964, Brosnahan served on the NAACP’s Housing Committee in S.F., when 70% of the city’s housing was not available to Blacks. They sued racial discriminators, fought for reform and opposed the displacement of minorities in the Western Addition. They won and they lost, but they became the racial conscience of San Francisco in the fight for fair housing.

In 1969, two Black community workers in Oakland were indicted for stealing federal money.

“My two clients were activists in Oakland. I believed there was an element of racism running through Washington’s decision to indict two Black men who worked every day to help the poor,” he said.

The case was eventually dismissed. In the early 70s, he responded to a subpoena and testified against Judge Rehnquists’ confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. He had witnessed Rehnquist obstructing voting at a polling place. Amid threats on his life, he was the chief defense lawyer for the American who joined the Taliban in 2002.

Brosnahan, his wife Carol and three children moved from S.F. to Berkeley in 1964, in part, to participate in the Berkeley school integration program. She is a retired Alameda County Superior Court judge.

Brosnahan, 90, checks in to his San Francisco firm, Morrison & Foerster often. He paints, reads, walks a mile a day, journals, and lectures, while writing another book: “Cultural History of Trials over the Centuries.”

His last book “Justice at Trial,” published in 2023, details his life and battles.

He reflects, “Over my career I have come to realize that one secret for enriching your own life is trying to help others. What better way to do that than to represent them in court.”