Pointer Buelna

Oakland

Civil Rights

In February last year, a state senator and an assembly member introduced bills that had been prompted by separate civil lawsuits that Pointer & Buelna, LLP had filed against law enforcement agencies. The bills were signed in September and the two new laws took effect this year.

That their litigation would produce legislation is consistent with Pointer & Buelna's philosophy and goals. Partners Adanté Pointer and Patrick Buelna also named their firm "Lawyers for the People."

When they created the firm in 2020, their plan was to not just practice civil rights litigation, but to be "true members of the community ... by providing opportunities for the people inside and outside the courtroom," Pointer said.

"We do a significant amount of community work," he said, including working with community partners and nonprofits that are providing educational resources, recreational opportunities, mentoring and other services that traditional law firms cannot.

It was through a referral from a community partner that the client in their most high-profile case reached them. The woman had been raped in 2016 and had allowed police to collect her DNA to find her attacker. Then, in 2021, the same police department used that DNA sample to charge her with shoplifting.

Pointer & Buelna sued, accusing the police of the "shocking practice" of testing all crime-scene DNA against genetic material collected from thousands of victims of unrelated crimes. The woman had provided her DNA "on the express understanding that it would be used solely to prosecute her offender," Buelna said. Doe v. The City and County of San Francisco, 3:22-cv-05179 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 12, 2022).

But well before they filed the suit, the case had drawn so much attention -- thanks in part to the firm's efforts in the community -- that Sen. Scott Weiner, D-S.F., introduced SB 1228, which now prohibits California law enforcement agencies from including sex crime victims' DNA in criminal databases.

San Francisco is still opposing the lawsuit, which is set for trial in February 2025.

The lawyers' second legislation-making case was a wrongful death action by the family of a young Black man who was repeatedly tased and then asphyxiated after he ran from police trying to apprehend him for jaywalking. The case settled in February for $4.5 million, believed to be a record for a police-related settlement in San Mateo County. Okobi v. San Mateo County, 3:19-cv-03002 (N.D. Cal., filed May 31, 2019).

Even before the settlement, AB 2147 by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-S.F., took effect to restrict how police may enforce jaywalking laws.

Pointer & Buelna also had victories in civil rights litigation that did not lead to new laws. The firm won a $21 million jury verdict in June last year for the family of a 16-year-old girl who was killed when Fremont police shot into the car in which she and a friend were riding with two teenage males the police were pursuing. Mondragon v. City of Fremont, 18-cv-01605 (N.D. Cal., filed March 10, 2020).

"They missed the two men completely," Buelna said. "The only person that was shot was her."

During a two-week trial, the city generally blamed the death on the actions of the teenage suspect driving the car. "They were unapologetic the entire time," he said.

In a newer lawsuit, the firm is suing over the death of an inmate at the Santa Rita jail. Estate of Monk v. Alameda County, 3:22-cv-04037 (N.D. Cal., filed July 11, 2022).

Maurice Monk had been jailed after an argument on a bus. He should have been in custody only a few days, but he was detained for more than a month, Buelna said. For three days, he lay on his bunk face down without eating, drinking or taking his medication. "When they finally went in, he had been dead likely for over a day."

-- Don DeBenedictis