The overwhelming majority of the criminal cases filed in San Diego are not misdemeanors or felonies. They’re infractions.
Although the punishments are less severe, challenging an infraction isn’t necessarily any easier.
For years, defense attorneys and advocates have argued that a 2017 decision by the city attorney’s office under Mara Elliott to stop overseeing the exchange of evidence in infraction cases removed a key layer of oversight in the judicial system and effectively outsourced the job of prosecutor to cops. Instead, defendants need to go to the police agency that filed the infraction and ask for the information that might clear their name.
That’s an obvious problem when an officer lies or deletes the body camera footage before it can be turned over.
In a new story, Jesse Marx breaks down the ongoing dispute and the justifications for the city attorney’s hands-off approach to infraction cases.
As both a cost-saving and legal matter, Elliott’s office has argued that it isn’t required to prosecute infractions, that judges are responsible for protecting a defendant’s rights in infraction cases and that the public is better served by the non-involvement of city prosecutors.
The number of non-traffic infractions filed in Superior Court has risen sharply in recent years. Defense attorney Coleen Cusack, who works pro bono with homeless people, has said the policy amounts to the city giving “the police a playground without any supervision.”
More Political News
- Police reform was among the most high-profile topics of conversation in the California Legislature last summer but many of those efforts failed in the face of pressure from police groups. In the Sacramento Report, Sara Libby explains where three such measures stand in the current session. One was written by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez and would bans the use of many kinetic projectiles at protests and put restrictions on tear gas.
- The podcast was all about restaurants and recalls and how the tensions how and when to reopen seem to be driving many of the big conflicts in the news. The city of San Diego was scheduled to start cracking down on unpermitted structures last week but hit pause on enforcement until August.
Elsewhere in the Empire
- Members of the Padres recounted to ESPN how they reacted to hearing gunshots outside of Nationals Stadium as a game was underway.
- Thousands of UCSD students need a place to live, since the campus has increased enrollment far faster than it’s built more housing. (Union-Tribune)
- La Jolla’s Lillian Faderman is the “mother of lesbian history” or the “foremother of gay and lesbian studies” and is the author of many landmark books about gay rights. Randy Dotinga spoke with Faderman about the LGBT community’s history in San Diego and what she’s working on next.
The Morning Report was written by Jesse Marx, and edited by Sara Libby.