POLICE SCANDAL IN L.A. MAY AFFECT 3,000 CASES

LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti and
Public Defender Michael Judge have vastly increased their estimates of
the number of convictions that need to be reviewed as a result of the
city police scandal, and both now say they will need more resources to
handle what could be more than 3,000 questionable cases.

"This is the biggest problem I have seen in my 31 years in the
district attorney's office," said Garcetti, who already has seven
prosecutors reviewing problem cases full time and said that number
could multiply as his office reviews more cases.

Garcetti said there was no doubt that his office will seek the release
of more people because their convictions are tainted, though he is not
certain how large the number ultimately will be. He said it is likely
that it will take years for the scandal to be fully unraveled.

Judge agreed with his adversary that the scandal's reach continues to
expand: "People who saw L.A. Confidential and said it could never
happen now were wrong."

The comments of those two top officials, made in interviews this week,
indicate that the implications of the scandal, which already has
resulted in a dozen officers being relieved of duty, are far bigger
than previously disclosed and could consume local criminal justice
resources well into the future.

Judge's top assistant, Robert Kalunian, said attorneys in their office
and the Alternate Public Defender's office will have to review more
than 800 potentially tainted cases involving ex-Los Angeles Police
Department Officer Rafael Perez -- who has been convicted of cocaine
thefts and is assisting authorities under a grant of immunity -- and
another 2,500 involving other officers from the department's Rampart
Division anti-gang CRASH unit who either have been fired or are under
investigation.

Local officials previously had put the number of cases at about 500.
And even with the growing number of cases, some local defense lawyers
complain that prosecutors are being too slow in releasing information,
making it difficult to know the full scope of the problem.

Kalunian said the public defender's office already is making a second
review of some of Perez's cases that initially were deemed unworthy of
further review because the officer had not played a critical role.

Subsequently, however, it was discovered that Perez's partner, Nino
Durden, who also has been relieved of duty, was involved in those
cases, prompting the need for a second review, Kalunian said.

So far, the district attorney's office has gone to court to obtain the
release of four inmates who prosecutors concluded had been improperly
convicted. In addition, the district attorney's office has persuaded
judges to vacate the convictions of seven other individuals who were
no longer in custody.