The significance of the Leon case is law enforcement no longer has absolute immunity

Ali Taheripour and I were amici curiae on Leon v. Co. of Riverside, 2023 DJDAR 6053 (Cal S. Ct., filed July 6, 2021). While your June 23 article about the decision, "State high court denies immunity to Riverside County sheriff's deputies," correctly states the Supreme Court's unanimous holding and includes some important points made by Attorney Richard L. Antognini, the significance of the Leon case merits additional comment.

The broader principle for which Dora Leon v. County of Riverside stands is that beginning as of June 22, law enforcement no longer has absolute immunity against being sued for maliciously or even negligently causing harm to anyone in the course of carrying out its investigations. In so deciding, the California Supreme Court disapproves of at least 13 appellate court cases it mentions by name, all of which had conferred absolute "investigative" immunity for specious reasons on the local police, the California Highway Patrol, and other California law enforcement.

One such case that the California Supreme Court tells us was wrongly decided is Amylou R. v. County of Riverside (1995) 28 Cal.App.4th 1205. In that case two high school girls had been picked up, assaulted, and raped by the same assailant, who also murdered one of them. The survivor, age 15, was slandered by two Riverside detectives in the course of their investigation of the crimes. Dissatisfied with the information she provided to them, one of the detectives "told her that he "knew" that she was lying, that he wanted the truth, the whole story, and that if she refused, he would tell everyone she knew that she was lying, with the result that she would have no friends." The detectives later told neighbors that Amylou was, in fact, lying and that "'there was more to her involvement than meets the eye'"; and one of the detectives even "told the mother of another girl at Amylou's school that Amylou knew the man who committed the crimes, that she was not the victim she presented herself to be, and that she was involved in the crimes." (Amylou R, supra, 28 Cal.App.4th at 1210-1211.)

As it turned out, Amylou had, in fact, told the police all she knew; and they had no excuse for threatening her and were, as a jury later determined, lying when they accused her. No charges were ever brought against Amylou; and she subsequently sued the police for the intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The jury awarded her $300,000 in compensation for the wrong law enforcement had inflicted upon her.

But when the County of Riverside challenged the jury's verdict before the Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, the higher court reversed on behalf of the County, asserting that the police had enjoyed civil immunity for their conduct undertaken during the course of an official investigation, even if that conduct was malicious. And why? Because, the court reasoned, placing any limits on the efforts of the police to investigate crime would curtail their zeal. "To eliminate that fear of litigation and to prevent the officers from being harassed in the performance of their duties, law enforcement officers are granted immunity from civil liability, even for the malicious abuse of their power." (Amylou R., supra, 28 Cal.App.4th at 1213.)

Since the Supreme Court's decision in Leon v. Co. of Riverside, the Amylou R. rationale excusing police misconduct - the pernicious and false doctrine of investigative immunity, which is more at home in a police state than in a free society - is no longer the law. And it's about time. Forty-one years of bad decisions from the Courts of Appeal throughout California, all of which were at variance with the Supreme Court's holding in Sullivan v. County of Riverside (1974) 12 Cal.3d 710, is long enough.

-- Les T. Zador

Law Offices of Les T. Zador

Encino