PD Editorial: The Sonoma County DA's body-cam rule threatens to smother transparency

We take Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch at her word when she says “we’re not trying to hide anything.”

But a new mandate by her office prohibiting criminal defense lawyers from uploading police body-cam and dash-cam videos to the internet or otherwise making public such recordings certainly leaves the impression that her department is not in any hurry to let the public see for themselves any disputed encounters with law enforcement.

Under this new protective order, defense attorneys are prevented from receiving body-cam video unless they sign a non-disclosure agreement that would not expire until 90 days after the resolution of the case. At that time, the defendant is required to return the tape to the District Attorney’s Office. If the defendant still wants a copy, he or she would need to make a written request. At that point, the public may, or may not, get a look at the tape.

We understand the complexities presented by the proliferation of video today and how it can help and sometimes inhibit the ability to ensure a fair criminal trial. Prosecutors and defense attorneys have a challenging job.

But in this case, the primary motivation isn’t about protecting a defendant’s Sixth Amendment rights. It’s about protecting the interests of those who may or may not have any involvement in the case.

Ravitch said these limitations are meant to protect the privacy of victims, children and others whose images are sometimes caught on camera. In a Close to Home column on page B9 today, Ravitch further defends her position, noting it’s also driven by resources to protect those caught on film by accident.

“We receive hours of video in many, if not most, of the cases we review,” she wrote. “We do not have the resources to watch and edit each of these videos to redact privileged information.”

The concern for privacy is understandable. But having such a blanket protective order on defense attorneys - one that potentially keeps the public in the dark - is a steep price for the presumption of protecting privacy rights of victims and witnesses who may or may not be concerned about having those interests protected.

Consider the case of Gabbi Lemos, a Petaluma teen who claims she was assaulted by a sheriff’s deputy during a late-night encounter outside her house a year ago. All of the family members feartured in that body-cam video wanted the video released, but the county, at first, refused. Ultimately, the Sheriff’s Office did the right thing in posting the video, which allowed the public to make up their own minds as to what happened that night.

But the greatest risk of such a protective order is that it could be used to block public access to video with prevailing community interest, such as an officer-involved shooting.

“Whether the video evidence should be released for public scrutiny is up to the law enforcement agency that collected it, not me,” Ravitch notes in today’s Close to Home. If that is the case, it opens the possibility of a bifurcated system in which the public is far more likely to see a video that exonerates the conduct of an officer than one that clears a civilian charged with a crime.

This hardly serves the interest of fairness or equal justice under the law.

An across-the-board order of this kind is unwarranted. If the district attorney has specific concerns about protecting the privacy interests of victims or witnesses in a case, she can purse an order. But these issues can and should be decided on a case-by-case basis.