How to fix the "Brady Problem" in San Francisco Criminal Courts
As we have discussed in prior blog posts, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has not been turning over the criminal records of San Francisco police officers as is mandated by the United States Supreme Court. San Francisco Criminal Defense Attorneys are entitled to this information during criminal cases. It is no easy task to keep tabs on over 2000 San Francisco police officers, many of them who live outside of San Francisco. I have some suggestions to take care of this issue and help restore the public's confidence in the San Francisco Criminal Justice System.
1)As a condition of employment, make it mandatory for all police officers to self report to their supervisors anytime they are arrested.
2)Grant Amnesty to all those officers that come forward now with their prior criminal arrests.
3)Send District Attorney investigators to all neighboring counties to run the names of all officers in the databases of all the Criminal Courts. This would take two investigators several weeks to complete.
4)Send these investigators every year to search the data bases of criminal courts of neighboring counties for the arrests of San Francisco Police Officers.
This is the only fair way to handle the current crisis and would help restore community confidence in the District Attorney's office and the criminal justice system.