Facts

The City of Los Angeles (City) was in the practice of obtaining and enforcing "gang injunctions," which were state-court civil orders prohibiting a variety of behaviors (including non-criminal activity such as associating with other named individuals or wearing certain clothing), that it contended cause a nuisance when committed by active members of a gang operating within a defined geographic area. In the civil case, the City named as defendants not only individual alleged gang members, but also one or more gangs, named as unincorporated associations. The City then enforced the gang injunctions by arresting and prosecuting individuals who violated their terms for criminal contempt. The City enforced these gang injunctions not only against individuals named as defendants in the civil complaint, but also against individuals who it had not named in the civil suit but whom it unilaterally determined were "active gang members" and had served with injunction papers. The Youth Justice Coalition and two individuals, Peter Arellano and Jose Reza, (plaintiffs) filed a class action suit against the City challenging the City's enforcement of the gang injunctions against them and alleged that the City violated procedural due process under the United States and California Constitutions by not naming plaintiffs as defendants in the gang injunction proceedings or not providing plaintiffs an opportunity to contest the allegation that they were, in fact, active members of the criminal street gang subject to the injunctions before being served with and made subject to enforcement of the gang injunction. Plaintiffs asked the court to order the City to cease enforcing the gang injunction against any individual without first providing individuals an opportunity to contest the allegation that they are active gang members.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS: Plaintiffs contended that defendant's enforcement of gang injunctions violated due process by compelling individuals to comply with the injunction's terms who were not named in the underlying gang injunction proceedings, or otherwise found to be active members of the enjoined gang pursuant to a constitutionally-adequate adversarial procedure

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS: Defendant denied all of the contentions.

Result

The case settled. As part of the settlement, plaintiffs released all claims in the lawsuit. Under the settlement, defendant will enforce a gang injunction against an individual only if the individual was named as a defendant in the injunction proceedings, or otherwise made party to the suit, and is made subject to enforcement by order of the Superior Court. If defendant files a complaint seeking a new gang injunction, defendant is required to name any individual as a defendant against whom defendant seeks to enforce the new gang injunction. Defendant may petition the court to include additional defendants or parties in interest in a new or existing gang injunction but they must be provided due process inherent in any civil proceedings under California law. For three years, defendant must provide to individuals served with a new gang injunction a letter that provides contact information of plaintiffs' counsel and explanatory information about the process. For individuals served with a motion to modifying an existing gang injunction, defendant must provide a letter that provides contact information of plaintiffs' counsel and other legal resources available to the individual. For three years, defendants will provide to plaintiffs' counsel the names and reasonably available contact information of individuals served with a complaint seeking a new gang injunction or motion to modify seeking to add an individual to an existing gang injunction.