SECRECY OVER SHERIFF'S FIRINGS BEING DISPUTED

One deputy was fired after admitting he regularly smoked marijuana when he
got home from work. Another was fired for dousing a handcuffed inmate with
pepper spray. A sergeant was fired after he slammed an inmate's face
against a bus.

Despite the fact that the San Diego County Sheriff's Department found ample
reason to dismiss the three, taxpayers cannot learn more about the cases --
including the officers' identities -- even though an appellate court ruled
in September that the public is entitled to such information.

County officials and law enforcement groups say that's because the
California Supreme Court has agreed to review the appellate court's
decision. They said if the high court later rules that disciplinary action
is part of a private personnel file, officers whose cases were made public
will have been irreparably harmed.

The Copley Press, which publishes The San Diego Union-Tribune, disagrees.

Scott Wahrenbrock, an attorney representing the newspaper in its battle for
more disclosure, said the lack of information is "shocking" and "contrary
to an open and free society that gives its citizens the right to scrutinize
the conduct of the officials they hire to protect them."

He added, "Our country has never tolerated a secret police force, free from
public scrutiny."

The recent battle over disclosure began after the county Civil Service
Commission departed in 2003 from its nearly 70-year practice of holding
open hearings for officers appealing disciplinary action. The hearings were
among the few ways the public could learn about how law enforcement dealt
with members who had been disciplined for wrongdoing.

It started when a deputy asked to have his March 20 hearing before the
Civil Service Commission closed. His name and the nature of the charges
against him were kept from the public.

The Copley Press sued. In May 2003, San Diego Superior Court Judge Wayne
Peterson ruled that the commission acted properly.

The newspaper appealed. On Sept. 16, 2004, the 4th District Court of Appeal
reversed Peterson's ruling.

Within weeks, the Deputy Sheriffs' Association asked the state Supreme
Court to review the case.

Meanwhile, taxpayers still are being prevented from learning about
disciplined deputies. Since the commission changed its policy and stopped
allowing access to its decisions, it has heard 19 cases behind closed doors.

The commission recently released more than 300 pages of heavily censored
documents pertaining to those 19 cases, but only after receiving a request
from the Union-Tribune under the California Public Records Act. It was in
those documents that the firings of the three deputies were revealed.

One was fired after he told his fiancee in a November 2002 tape-recorded
conversation that he often smoked marijuana after work.

A sergeant and a deputy were fired last year for abusing inmates in
separate incidents at the Central Jail in downtown San Diego.

In the first case, a sergeant was fired for slamming an inmate's face
against a bus July 2, 2003, an action that resulted in 11 stitches over the
inmate's eye.

In the second case, a deputy repeatedly doused an inmate's face with pepper
spray after handcuffing him Oct. 11, 2003. The spray initially had been
used properly to break up a fight between two inmates in a cell.

Everett Bobbitt, an attorney representing the Deputy Sheriffs' Association,
says peace officers must be held accountable for misconduct, but releasing
information that may prove to be false goes too far.

"Peace officers attract a lot of publicity when they are accused of
misconduct, and they are frequently exonerated," Bobbitt said. "But when
they are exonerated, it doesn't attract the same level of attention. The
publicity harms their reputations, and I can't get that back for them."

Not all officers feel that way. The city of San Diego's Civil Service
Commission remains committed to open hearings.

"Our hearings have always been public," said Rich Snapper, San Diego's
personnel director. "At the point where a hearing is scheduled on a public
calendar, the police officer's name is made public, and information,
evidence and documents that are introduced at a hearing are also made public."

In the past two years, the city's panel has held just one hearing involving
officers appealing an official action. The two officers, confident of
exoneration, had asked that the hearing remain open so the public would
know when their names were cleared.