DA Office Complaint Records
Q: The DA’s Office will not provide me copies of 6 complaint refusals on a felony that I was the victim in.
A: I am unsure of the meaning of your reference to “6 a complaint refusals” in your inquiry. If the records to which you refer are copies of complaints or related records, the District Attorney’s office can legally withhold the copies you requested. However, under the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”), they must provide you with certain information from those records.
Under the CPRA, records in the possession of public entities are presumed to be public unless one of the Act’s enumerated exceptions to disclosure applies. Government Code section 6254(f) sets forth the so-called “law enforcement” exemption, which allows law enforcement agencies to withhold, among other things, records of complaints and investigatory records. This exemption does not, on the other hand, allow the police to withhold all information contained in those records. In a case called Williams v. Superior Court, 5 Cal. 4th 337 (1993), the California Supreme Court said that, in enacting the CPRA, “the state Legislature … limited the CPRA’s exemption for law enforcement investigatory files . . . by requiring agencies to disclose specific information derived from the materials in investigatory files rather than the materials, themselves.” Thus, the Court said, the “required disclosures of information derived from the records about incidents, arrests, and complaints need not, in most cases, entail disclosure of the records themselves.”
Here is what the CPRA has to say about what information must be disclosed. Unless the disclosure would endanger completion of an investigation or the safety of a witness or other person involved in the investigation (or release the analysis or conclusions of an investigating officer), a law enforcement agency must disclose the following:
[t]he names and addresses of persons involved in, or witnesses [except confidential informants] to, the incident, the description of any property involved, the date, time, and location of the incident, all diagrams, statements of the parties involved in the incident, the statements of all witnesses, other than confidential informants, to the victims of an incident, or an authorized representative thereof, an insurance carrier against which a claim has been or might be made, and any person suffering bodily injury or property damage or loss, as the result of the incident caused by arson, burglary, fire, explosion, larceny, robbery, carjacking, vandalism, vehicle theft, or a crime . . .
Cal Gov’t Code 6254(f)
Except as provided below, the law enforcement agency also must disclose the following information:
(1) The full name and occupation of every individual arrested by the agency, the individual’s physical description including date of birth, color of eyes and hair, sex, height and weight, the time and date of arrest, the time and date of booking, the location of the arrest, the factual circumstances surrounding the arrest, the amount of bail set, the time and manner of release or the location where the individual is currently being held, and all charges the individual is being held upon, including any outstanding warrants from other jurisdictions and parole or probation holds.
(2) [Subject to certain restrictions], the time, substance, and location of all complaints or requests for assistance received by the agency and the time and nature of the response thereto, including, to the extent the information regarding crimes alleged or committed or any other incident investigated is recorded, the time, date, and location of occurrence, the time and date of the report, the name and age of the victim, the factual circumstances surrounding the crime or incident, and a general description of any injuries, property, or weapons involved. The name of a victim of any crime defined by [the California Penal Code] may be withheld at the victim’s request, or at the request
of the victim’s parent or guardian if the victim is a minor.
Cal. Gov’t Code 6254(f)(1)-(2).
If the information that must be disclosed would be useful to you, you may want to communicate with the DA’s office to submit a CPRA written request for the information you seek, reminding them of their obligation under section 6254(f) to provide you with the required disclosures. A sample CPRA request is available on CFAC’s website at:
http://www.cfac.org/templates/cpraletter.html.