L.A. Sheriff Luna defies subpoenas, sues oversight commission over deputy misconduct records
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Sheriff Robert Luna sued Los Angeles County’s Civilian Oversight Commission on Wednesday, asking a court to decide whether the department should comply with the commission’s subpoenas requesting information about deputy misconduct and uses of force.
Filed in L.A. County Superior Court, the suit comes several weeks after the oversight commission issued subpoenas demanding records relating to three controversial cases in which deputies beat or shot young men. Some of the deputies involved have been fired, barred from being sworn police officers or pleaded guilty to federal crimes.
The department’s response to the subpoenas was due Thursday morning at the oversight commission’s meeting, where the full materials were to be delivered by a sheriff’s official designated as a custodian of records. But the department did not comply, failing to send either records or a records custodian.
And the lawsuit filed a day earlier said Luna was unsure whether state laws that keep most police personnel records secret would conflict with legal requirements to obey the commission’s subpoena. During the meeting, Luna told commissioners he was defying the subpoenas only at the direction of attorneys for the county.
“This isn’t an issue of trying to hide any information,” Luna said. “We just want clarification so we can follow the law. What you’re asking us to do right now violates the law, according to county counsel.”
Robert Bonner, the former federal judge who chairs the oversight commission, said that legal advice was misguided, accused the county’s lawyers of malpractice and said the commission planned to sue the department.
“I find this extraordinary and frankly disrespectful to this commission and not lawful,” he said. “They simply thumbed their nose at us.”
After the meeting ended, a sheriff’s official delivered a thumb drive containing redacted versions of some of the records requested by two of the subpoenas.
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In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said that it was “committed to transparency” and that the legal complaint was “not intended to cause division between county departments, but rather to gain clear guidance on the complex legal issues” because failing to do so could lead to an “erosion of public trust.”
The union that represents rank-and-file deputies, the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, cheered Luna’s actions.
“While ALADS has significant concerns about the Civilian Oversight Commission’s runaway-train-like behavior, we have not yet had the opportunity to review this litigation in detail and therefore cannot comment specifically,” union President Richard Pippin told The Times. “We do applaud Sheriff Luna’s commitment to safeguarding sensitive employee records and act within the law.”
In early 2020, the Board of Supervisors gave the commission the ability to direct the Office of Inspector General to issue subpoenas. Two months later, amid a series of Sheriff’s Department scandals, Los Angeles voters overwhelmingly approved Measure R, giving the commission power to directly subpoena witnesses and records. A few months after that, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law granting subpoena power to oversight bodies statewide.
Over the last few years, the oversight commission has typically requested documents — including those relating to jail deaths, deputy gangs and sexual misconduct — through public records laws. The Sheriff’s Department has turned over records in response to some commission requests, but has resisted others, saying the records in question were confidential. In February, the commission took a stronger approach and issued subpoenas.
Sean Kennedy — a member of the oversight commission since its inception — told The Times of his decision after the latest twist in the case of Diana Teran, a former top advisor to George Gascón, who faces six felony charges.
One of the subpoenas asks for all investigative materials relating to Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old who was killed in 2020 by deputies who shot him in the back after a brief foot chase. Both of the deputies involved were later sentenced to federal prison for an unrelated incident in which they admitted to kidnapping and abusing a skateboarder after he yelled at them to stop picking on teens in a Compton park.
Another subpoena sought records in the case of Emmett Brock, a transgender man who was beaten by a Norwalk deputy outside a 7-Eleven in 2023. The incident was caught on camera, and last year Deputy Joseph Benza pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation for using excessive force.
At least eight other deputies were relieved of duty after Benza made several damning allegations in his plea agreement, including claims that numerous other deputies and sergeants had helped cover up his misconduct.
The third subpoena seeks records in connection with the case of Joseph Perez, who was beaten by Industry station sheriff’s deputies in 2020. The department deemed the use of force to be within policy, though Perez disputes that and has since filed suit. The case is still pending.
Each of the three subpoenas signed by Bonner includes a warning in all capital letters: “DISOBEDIENCE OF THIS SUBPOENA MAY BE PUNISHED AS CONTEMPT BY A COURT. YOU WILL ALSO BE LIABLE FOR THE SUM OF FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND ALL DAMAGES RESULTING FROM YOUR FAILURE TO OBEY.”
The department says some of the records oversight officials have asked for are secret under a state law that makes most kinds of deputy personnel records confidential.
That law, section 832.7 of the California Penal Code, has some exceptions so prosecutors, state oversight officials and grand juries can see confidential records as needed during investigations. But the Sheriff’s Department says the law doesn’t specifically say that civilian oversight commissions are allowed to see those records, and that a court needed to clarify so sheriff’s officials are not held criminally liable for complying.
This isn’t the first time the commission’s subpoena powers have been met with resistance from the Sheriff’s Department. In 2020, when the commission subpoenaed the former sheriff, Alex Villanueva, about his response to COVID-19 in the jail, Villanueva questioned the legality of that move. The dispute ended up in court, and ultimately Villanueva agreed to answer the commission’s questions voluntarily.
When oversight officials issued more subpoenas, Villanueva resisted those as well, resulting in multiple court cases. One of those cases nearly led to a contempt hearing in 2022, but the court called it off after Villanueva’s lawyers asked a higher court to step in.
In late 2023, after he was no longer sheriff, Villanueva finally agreed to testify under oath and answer questions about alleged deputy gangs operating within the department.
In the lawsuit filed this week, the Sheriff’s Department tried to distance itself from Villanueva’s tactics, saying it was taking a “markedly different approach” from the prior administration, which “actively resisted COC oversight efforts, requiring the COC at times to seek court intervention to force LASD to comply with requests.”
Much of Thursday’s meeting, however, focused on the commission’s efforts to again seek court intervention — though the discussion about that proposed intervention spurred several tense exchanges with the county’s lawyer, who said commissioners did not have the authority to go into closed session to discuss the potential litigation with attorneys.
Bonner objected, telling the county’s attorney that was an incorrect understanding of the law, and that the commission was permitted to go into closed session for legal advice.
“The Sheriff’s Department and county counsel have been playing tag team here to keep this commission from getting access to confidential documents that are needed for oversight,” Bonner said, appearing exasperated.
The county’s lawyer ultimately did not participate in the closed session, and instead Inspector General Max Huntsman served as special counsel for the commission as permitted by county ordinance.
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