One-Year Limit On Disciplinary Actions Against Police Officers Is Extended By Criminal Proceedings And Investigations Of Multiple Officers

In Parra v. City and County of San Francisco (— Cal.Rptr. 3d —, 2006 WL 3262416, Cal.App. 1 Dist., Nov. 13, 2006), a California Court of Appeal considered whether a citizens oversight commission could recommend disciplinary actions against police officers more than a year after the alleged violations by the officers occurred.

The Court ruled that exceptions to the one-year limit in the Public Safety Officer’s Procedural Bill of Rights Act (“Act”), for cases in which investigations involve multiple officers, or for cases involving criminal proceedings, allowed the Commission to recommend disciplinary action against the officers more than a year after the alleged violations occurred.

Facts

On November 20, 2002, two San Francisco residents claimed they were attacked by three men, who were later identified as off-duty San Francisco Police officers. The case garnered wide publicity, and triggered criminal indictments, federal and state civil lawsuits, an internal police department investigation, and an investigation by the Office of Citizen Complaints (“OCC”), a civilian agency created to investigate citizen complaints of police misconduct, and recommend disciplinary measures to the Chief of Police.

On July 26, 2004, one year and eight months after the incident, the OCC formally reported findings of misconduct against seven officers arising from their roles in the incident, and its aftermath and investigation. The police officers filed a lawsuit in Superior Court claiming they could not be disciplined under the terms of the Act because it required that they be notified of proposed disciplinary measures within one year of the alleged offense. The trial court found that various exceptions to the one-year limit applied in this case and denied the police officers’ petitions. The police officers appealed.

Decision

Government Code Section 3304(d)(1) provides that if an “act, omission or other allegation” by an officer is also the subject of a criminal investigation or prosecution, the time during which the investigation is pending shall delay the onset of the one-year limit. There was undeniably a criminal investigation of the police officers, stemming from this incident, that lasted until April 4, 2003, the Court said, causing the one-year period to begin that day and last until April 4, 2004. However, the OCC issued its recommendations in July 2004, raising the question of whether another provision justified a delay of an additional three months.

Section 3304(d)(4) did so, the Court ruled. This section provides an exception to the one-year rule if “the investigation involves more than one employee and requires a reasonable extension.” Since it was undisputed that the investigation involved more than one employee, the question focused on whether an additional three-month extension was “reasonable.”

The Court reviewed the OCC’s lengthy, difficult, and complicated investigation of several officers and layers of bureaucracy within the department and found a three-month extension reasonable. The Court opined, “the integrity of the San Francisco Police Department, top to bottom, was in focus here, providing abundant evidence supporting an extension of the limitation provision.”

Therefore, the Superior Court ruling denying the police officers’ petitions was affirmed.

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