Prosecutorial Oversight

By Steve Cooley

Discusses proper role of the District Attorney in independently exercising oversight of public officials and law enforcement officers.

The expanding Rampart police corruption scandal is the issue in the 2000 election for District Attorney. Aside from scrutinizing over 3,000 questionable cases, the massive review raises a key legal question: how can Gil Garcetti justify his failure to exercise independent prosecutorial oversight of police conduct as part of his central duty as a DA?

Garcetti's explanation of a 1995 decision to discontinue the successful Operation Rollout program investigating police shootings belies a belief that the program (belatedly returning January 2000) might have prevented some abuses in the scandal. After complaining to the Board of Supervisors that he cut the Rollout Program due to a "lack of funds," Garcetti was unanimously reminded the money was used instead on expanding his personal staff and public relations operations.

His elimination of the Rollout Program and the prosecutorial oversight of police conduct it provided will now cost taxpayers millions of dollars. As importantly, it will increase the public's loss of faith in our county's criminal justice system. Garcetti's refusal to acknowledge any blame for the Rampart scandal, hoping that his decision to place seven full time prosecutors in charge of review problem cases will suffice, is disingenuous at best.

Garcetti won't discuss the subject or explain why no mechanisms were in place to more closely scrutinize police testimony in cases that were being prosecuted. As the investigations into allegations that Rampart station officers shot, beat and framed innocent men heightens, the DA is mired in the humiliating task of seeking release of an unknown number of inmates due to tainted convictions and the judicial dismissal of others no longer in custody.

Incredibly, Garcetti continues to micromanage the scandal instead of working closely with judges and attorneys to expedite release of non-confidential information to assess cases.

My first priority as District Attorney will be to call for an independent outside review of how the DA's office failed to put in place policies and procedures that could have prevented the worst police scandal in the city's history. "L.A. Confidential" was a movie. Rampart is real.