Author: IPAT Clinic Staff

UC Irvine law students win release of records detailing payouts to victims of law enforcement misconduct

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Note: A version of this post originally appeared on the UC Irvine Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic website.

Students at the UC Irvine School of Law won release of hundreds of documents that will shed light on the county’s payments of millions of dollars to victims who sued the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office for misconduct over nearly a decade.

“This is a huge win for the public,” said UCI Adjunct Clinical Law Professor Susan E. Seager in an announcement of the settlement. Professor Seager supervised the law students who sued the county for the documents and reached a settlement requiring release of the documents. “For the first time, the public will be able to see a huge database of documents revealing the names of deputies, prosecutors, and investigators who have been sued in court for breaking the law and the county paid the victims millions of dollars.”

“The documents should also provide details on the allegations against the employees and findings by a jury or judge,” Seager said.

The law school clinic informed the court of the settlement in a court filing Dec. 8.

UCI law students worked on the case for over two years on behalf of their client, the nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center, publisher of Prison Legal News. The students sued the county in Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this year, claiming the county’s refusal to release the documents violated the California Public Records Act.

UCI law student Dane Brody led the school’s litigation team, with support from students Jenna Cowan and Thomasin Bernhardt, negotiating the settlement with the county’s outside lawyers and attending several virtual court hearings with Professor Seager.

“Having the opportunity to represent HRDC and negotiate with the county throughout the semester to obtain a favorable settlement agreement has been one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences during my time at UC Irvine School of Law,” Dane said. “The work I have done with the clinic has really allowed me to step into the shoes of a practicing attorney, and I look forward to carrying on a robust pro bono practice in my own career in the future.”

The students provided free legal services to the publisher of Prison Legal News, as well as for other independent and nonprofit journalist organizations and open government groups, as part of their work in the Press Freedom and Transparency practice in the law school’s Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology law clinic.

Human Rights Defense Center Executive Director Paul Wright said the settlement will give the public crucial information about these payouts. “Taxpayers have a right to know what police and jail abuse is costing them in terms of money as well as the human cost,” Wright said. “We hope that making the information publicly available will inform the public on where their tax dollars are going and the need for progressive change in both policing and jail management alike.”

From 2019 to 2021, UC Irvine law students Madeline Knutson, Myles West, Roxanne Markus, Hedyeh Tirgardoon, and Bria Watson sent numerous letters asking the county to voluntarily release the documents under the Public Records Act, conducted negotiations, and performed other work on the case. After the county repeatedly refused to release the documents, law student Sabrina Victor and Benjamin Whittle drafted the lawsuit and the clinic filed it on April 29, 2021.

The lawsuit, Human Rights Defense Center v. County of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Superior Court Case No. 21STCP01342, alleged that the county violated the state’s Public Records Act by refusing to turn over a decade of its settlement agreements resolving administrative claims and lawsuits against the Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office. The lawsuit said that the county was required to turn over copies of the claims, lawsuits, jury verdicts, and court judgments for each settled case under the Public Records Act. Under the settlement, the county will release nearly all the documents sought by the Human Rights Defense Center, dating from 2013 to present. The organization had been asking for the records for the past 10 years without success until the law clinic stepped in.

The county told the law students that it would be an “undue burden” for the county to locate all the documents, and that they should go to court and look up the hundreds of lawsuits. But the lawsuit argued that the public has a right to get copies of the documents already collected by the county. Seager said that the settlement agreements are not typically filed in court and could only be obtained from the county.

At the first hearing on the case on August 5, 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant told the county that it didn’t have a very strong undue burden defense, and the two sides immediately began settlement talks, Seager said.

Judge Chalfant signed an order last week stating that he will maintain jurisdiction over the case until the county finishes releasing the documents, which is expected to take nine months.

“It’s a shame that we had sue the county to get these documents,” Seager said. “We call on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to start posting all county settlement agreements and related court documents involving the Sheriff’s Department and DA on a public website to put government transparency into practice.”

The county admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed that the Human Rights Defense Center is the “prevailing party,” which means that the county is required to reimburse the Human Rights Defense Center’s and the UCI law clinic for their attorney’s fees and costs after all the documents are produced. The amount of the attorney’s fees and costs has not been settled.

Prison Legal News, which is distributed to prisoners across the nation to provide education about prisoners’ legal rights, plans to publish the settlement agreements and related documents online so that the public can have easy access.

The documents will be made publicly available on two Human Rights Defense Center websites: www.prisonlegalnews.org and www.criminallegalnews.org.

Irvine IPAT Clinic files $100,000 civil rights claim over arrest of journalist

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Note: A version of this post originally appeared on the UC Irvine IPAT Clinic’s website. For a previous post about the Clinic’s work in securing the release of the journalist’s cellphone, see here.

The UC Irvine Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology (IPAT) Clinic filed a $100,000 civil rights claim on March 12 against Los Angeles County, alleging that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department violated a student journalist’s First and Fourth Amendment rights by wrongfully arresting him at a Black Lives Matter protest, confiscating his equipment, and losing his camera memory card containing two years of work.

“We know that the Sheriff’s Department conducted an internal investigation of Pablo Unzueta’s September 8, 2020 arrest after we wrote a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva,” said Professor Susan E. Seager, who directs the Clinic’s Press Freedom and Transparency team. “But the department refused to tell us its findings.”

“The Sheriff’s Department’s arrest, detention, and confiscation of Pablo’s cell phone, camera, and camera memory card violated Pablo’s First Amendment right to report about the news and his Fourth Amendment right to be free from wrongful arrest, excessive force, and seizure of his property,” Seager said.

Unzueta is one of 130 journalists arrested or detained by law enforcement in the United States during 2020, according to the U.S. Press Freedom tracker website.

California law — Penal Code section 409.5(d) — allows “duly authorized” journalists to enter areas closed by police during riots or civil disturbances, but local law enforcement largely ignore the law, Seager said.

Unzueta, a Cal State Long Beach student editor and freelance photojournalist, was arrested while photographing and filming a protest over the killing of a Black cyclist by sheriff’s deputies in South Los Angeles. Unzueta said deputies ignored him when he identified himself as a journalist and arrested him for allegedly failing to disperse after the deputies declared the protest an unlawful assembly. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said that it was not filing criminal charges against any protestors or journalists arrested during the September 8 protest.

Unzueta said deputies took his iPhone and Nikon D800 digital camera during his arrest and did not return his devices after booking and releasing him. Deputies later returned the camera, but not the memory card. It took three months for the department to release Unzueta’s cell phone. Seager said that a department captain told her that he interviewed nearly a dozen deputies about Unzueta’s arrest and no deputies reported seeing the journalist’s camera memory card. Unzueta says that the memory card contains his freelance photos that had been used by the Voice of OC and Washington Post.

Unzueta said that deputies handcuffed him, threw him into the bed of a truck filled with pepper spray balls that exploded upon impact, appeared to film him and other arrestees with the deputies’ personal cell phones, and called him a homophobic slur.

An independent report released this week concluded that the sheriff’s department’s municipal counterpart — the Los Angeles Police Department — severely mishandled Black Lives Matter protests during 2020.

“The entire process was very draining and it took a lot of grit and patience,” said Unzueta. “This case could never have been resolved if it weren’t for the Student Press Law Center and the UCI Law IPAT Clinic, who represent and protect the rights of journalists like myself.”

Unzueta was also represented by Professor Katie Tinto, Director of UCI Law’s Criminal Justice Clinic, who was contacted by the Student Law Press Center to represent Unzueta during a criminal court appearance. Tinto won the release of Unzueta’s camera.

California law requires people seeking damages from state and local government agencies to file an administrative claim with the government agency before going to court.

Irvine IPAT Clinic wins release of student journalist’s cellphone seized by deputies

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Note: A version of this post originally appeared on the Irvine IPAT Clinic’s website.

The Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology (IPAT) Clinic at UC Irvine School of Law scored a victory on December 18 when the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department released a student journalist’s iPhone that had been seized by deputies and held for three months. The Clinic’s Press Freedom and Transparency team, directed by Adjunct Professor Susan E. Seager, won the return of the cellphone to Pablo Unzueta, a Cal State Long Beach student editor and freelance journalist.

Deputies seized Unzueta’s iPhone and camera on September 8, 2020, when they arrested him while he was covering a protest over the killing of a Black cyclist by sheriff’s deputies in South Los Angeles. Deputies ignored Unzueta when he identified himself as a journalist and arrested him for allegedly failing to disperse after the deputies declared the protest an unlawful assembly. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said that it was not filing criminal charges against any protestors or journalists arrested during the protest.

“The Sheriff’s Department’s arrest of Pablo and seizure of his camera and cellphone violated Pablo’s First and Fourth Amendment rights,” Professor Seager said. “The seizure of his devices also violated California laws and a federal laws protecting the confidentiality of journalists’ notes and unpublished materials.”

During his arrest, Unzueta said deputies took his iPhone and Nikon D800 digital camera. Deputies returned the camera, but not the memory card. It took three months for the department to release the cellphone. The Clinic is still trying to get the camera memory card back. Unzueta says that the memory card contains two years of work, including freelance photos used by the Voice of OC and Washington Post.

The Clinic wrote a letter to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva stating that Unzueta’s arrest and seizure of his camera and cellphone violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights and California statutes protecting journalists. The sheriff’s department’s inspector general, Max Huntsman, has ordered an internal investigation into the arrest of Unzueta and the seizure of his devices.

Unzueta said that deputies handcuffed him, threw him into the bed of a truck filled with pepper spray balls that exploded upon impact, appeared to film him and other arrestees with the deputies’ personal cellphones, and called him a homophobic slur.

“The entire process was very draining and it took a lot of grit and patience,” said Unzueta. “This case could never have been resolved if it weren’t for the Student Press Law Center and the UCI Law IPAT Clinic, who represent and protect the rights of journalists like myself.”

Unzueta was also represented by Professor Katie Tinto, Director of UCI Law’s Criminal Justice Clinic, who was contacted by the Student Law Press Center to represent Unzueta during a criminal court appearance. Tinto won the release of Unzueta’s camera.

Irvine’s Press Freedom and Transparency students assist investigative journalist for Netflix series

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Above Photo: Prof. Susan Seager, IPAT client Garrett Therolf and IPAT student Betty Kim at a screening of The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez.

Note: A version of this post originally appeared on the Irvine IPAT Clinic’s website.

A new Netflix docuseries, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez, was made possible in part by the work of UC Irvine School of Law students. The students have worked for more than a year to unseal court records for series co-producer Garrett Therolf, a staff writer at UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program.

Therolf used the court records in the Netflix series to bring national attention to the repeated failure of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services to protect chronically abused children from being killed by their parents and caregivers.

The law students won disclosure of confidential juvenile court records for two child abuse victims, Anthony Avalos and Noah Cuatro, whose deaths are investigated by Therolf in the final episode of the Netflix series.

The docuseries, directed by Brian Knappenberger, was released on Netflix on February 26, 2020. The docuseries was Netflix’s most popular original series during its launch, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The students work under the supervision of Susan Seager, who directs the Press Freedom and Transparency practice in the Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic at UC Irvine School of Law.

David Barstow, former New York Times investigative reporter who is now head of investigative reporting at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, said, “This clinic is a godsend to journalism in California. Without access to public records, reporters too often can’t get to the truth and citizens too often are left in the dark. We have come to think of Susan and her amazing law school students as our SWAT team, always at the ready to leap into the never-ending battle for transparent, accountable government.”

“Susan’s team has been our indispensable partner as we pry loose details about systemic failures that harm, and sometimes kill, abused and neglected children,” Therolf said. “The agencies that serve these children are often built on the concept of secrecy, and we would be dead in the water without the UC Irvine Law clinic’s tireless work to shine a light on them.”

The final episode of the Netflix series focuses on the court files obtained by the law students, which show how Noah Cuatro, age four was allegedly killed by his parents in July 2019 and how Anthony Avalos, age 10, was allegedly killed by his parents in June 2018.

The students’ work for Therolf is not over. The students continue to seek juvenile court records for Therolf to reveal how other children were fatally abused while under the care of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

Second-year student Emily Horak is working to obtain more juvenile court records about Noah Cuatro. “It was a great experience to represent Therolf in juvenile court,” she said. “When requesting the records, our team felt the urgency of the matter. Maybe the insight from the records could prevent the death of another innocent child.”

Hedyeh Tirgardoon, a second-year student, is in the process of filing a motion to unseal confidential juvenile court records about two sisters who were allegedly killed by their mother. “Working with zealous advocate Garrett Therolf allows our clinic to be the voice for these children and for all children who are victims of alleged neglect and abuse. We refuse to turn a blind eye,” she said. “By holding government agencies accountable for their failure to protect children under their care, we hope to usher in a new era of transparency, responsibility, and protection to prevent atrocities like the deaths of Noah Cuatro, Anthony Avalos, and Gabriel Fernandez. Their deaths were preventable. It is as simple as that.”

In February, Betty Kim, also a second-year student, filed a motion in the Los Angeles Superior Court criminal division asking a judge to unseal the secret transcript of the grand jury that indicted Noah Cuatro’s parents for allegedly torturing, sexually abusing, and killing Noah. The motion is pending.

“Advocating in court on behalf of a journalist reinforced for me the longstanding importance of the First Amendment, as well as the press’s fundamental role to obtain and deliver prompt news to the public,” second-year law student Kim said.

In addition to Tirgardoon, Horak, and Kim, the law students who have worked for Therolf include Emily Asgari, Sachli Balazadeh-Nayeri, Nia Bush, Amy Chi, Cassie Doutt, Shanxi Feng, Henry Glitz, Kennedy Holmes, Jacob Karim, and Anthony Mendez.  The law clinic provides free legal services to independent journalists, documentary filmmakers, open government advocates, and start-up businesses, among others.

“The students have done a fantastic job representing Garrett and winning court orders releasing secret government files,” Seager said.

The Netflix series focuses on the criminal trials of Gabriel Fernandez’s mother, Pearl Fernandez, and her boyfriend, Isauro Aguirre. Both were charged with torturing and killing Fernandez’s eight-year-old son, Gabriel. Aguirre was convicted and sentenced to death, while Fernandez pleaded guilty and agreed to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

To win court orders releasing the juvenile court records, the students employed a California law (Welfare & Institutions Code Section 827(a)(2)) that requires juvenile courts to disclose confidential court records about fatally abused children when the children are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court at time of death.

To seek the grand jury transcript, the students are relying on California Penal Code Section 938.1(b), which provides that post-indictment state grand jury transcripts “shall” be unsealed unless the defendant can show a “reasonable likelihood” that 12 unbiased jurors cannot be found. The clinic has filed a motion asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to unseal the secret grand jury transcript in the murder case against Noah Cuatro’s parents, who were indicted for allegedly torturing, sexually abusing, and killing Noah.

The law students have worked on the following cases for Therolf:

In re Anthony Avalos. Anthony Avalos was 10 years old when he was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead in June 21, 2018 with a fatal skull fracture and signs of neglect and abuse. In 2019, students filed a petition on behalf of Therolf in Los Angeles Superior Court’s juvenile division, seeking disclosure of Anthony’s confidential juvenile case file to find out the circumstances of his death while under the protection of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. On July 24, 2019, the court issued an order unsealing Anthony’s file. On September 3, 2019, Therolf published an expose about Anthony’s death on the front page of the Los Angeles Times. Anthony’s case is discussed in the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez.

In re Olivia Apai. Olivia Apai was 10 months old when she died on June 24, 2019. The Los Angeles County Department of Family and Child Services said in a press release that she died of suspected maltreatment while in the custody of a parent or legal guardian. Students filed a petition to unseal Olivia’s juvenile case file on behalf of Therolf in Los Angeles Superior Court’s juvenile court division. On January 23, 2020, the court issued an order granting Therolf’s petition and ordering release of her juvenile case file.

In re Noah Cuatro. Noah Cuatro was four years old when he was allegedly killed by his parents, Jose Maria Cuatro Jr. and Ursula Elaine Juarez, on July 6, 2019. In September 2019, students filed a petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court juvenile division on behalf of Therolf, seeking disclosure of Noah’s juvenile case file. In March 2020, the court indicated that it had granted Therolf’s petition and ordered disclosure of Noah’s file, but the court has not released its order or the file as of this writing. Noah’s case was discussed in the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez.

People v. Juarez. In February 2020,students filed a motion in Los Angeles Superior Court’s criminal division, asking the court to unseal the transcript of the grand jury proceedings that resulted in the murder and torture indictment of Noah Cuatro’s parents, Jose Maria Cuatro Jr. and Ursula Elaine Juarez. The motion is pending. Noah’s case was discussed in the sixth episode of the Netflix docuseries, The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez.

In re Camille Hickman and In re Jaliya Hickman. Seven-year-old Jaliya Hickman and her sister, one-year-old Camille Brewster Hickman, died on October 19, 2017. Their tiny unclothed bodies were dusted with a white powder when they were found near a liquor store in San Pedro. In March 2019, students filed a petition in the Los Angeles Superior Court’s juvenile division on behalf of Therolf, seeking disclosure of the Hickman sisters’ juvenile case files. On July 24, 2019, the court issued an order granting the release of their juvenile case files to Therolf. Students are filing a second petition asking the court to release more of the file.

UC Irvine’s IPAT Clinic wins disclosure of child services records

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This post originally appeared on the IPAT Clinic’s website on September 16, 2019.

Students from the UCI Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic won disclosure of government records earlier this year, revealing how social workers failed to protect a 10-year-old Los Angeles boy from years of alleged physical abuse, eventually ending with his death and murder charges being filed against his mother and her boyfriend.

The clinic’s client, journalist Garrett Therolf, published a lengthy story about the boy, Anthony Avalos, in the Los Angeles Times on September 4 based in part on the documents obtained by UCI students.

Students Cassie Doutt, Shanxi Feng, and Emily Asgari filed a petition with the Los Angeles Superior Court’s juvenile court division in March 2019 on behalf of Therolf, a staff writer at the UC Berkeley Investigative Reporting Program, asking the court to unseal records from the LA Department of Children and Family Services detailing years of alleged abuse of young Anthony.  In July, a judge ordered most of the records unsealed, and Garrett was provided the documents in late August.

The students are part of the IPAT Clinic’s Press Freedom and Transparency practice, headed by UCI Staff Attorney Susan E. Seager, providing pro bono legal services to journalists, documentary filmmakers, and others.

Photo by Mathieu Marquer is licensed under CC BY 2.0