The ongoing racist text messaging scandal that has impugned dozens of Antioch police officers could shake up the local justice system on a scale never before seen in California history as prosecutors and judges are assessing whether to dismiss hundreds if not thousands of criminal cases and convictions.
The problem is so widespread that both the Contra Costa District Attorney and Public Defender’s offices fear buckling under the unprecedented workload. Late last month, the county Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to help by spending $2.2 million for the hiring of 10 attorneys, five for each agency.
Those new hires — who represent the beginning of the widening scandal’s impact on county taxpayers — will work to sort out just how deep the problems at the Antioch Police Department run.
“The behavior of these officers has far-reaching consequences and has harmed individuals who may have been unfairly accused or prosecuted,” Supervisor John Gioia said after the board’s vote. “Their racist actions cause the public to lose confidence in our law enforcement and criminal justice systems, and we are all paying the price for their misbehavior.”
Since early 2022, the FBI and DA have been investigating no fewer than eight current and former officers for suspected crimes, including assault under color of authority, obstruction of justice, fraud and involvement in drug trafficking. The trouble only compounded last month when it was revealed as part of the investigation that dozens of officers were sending each other racist, homophobic and sexist text messages and memes. Some of the messages made light of inflicting violence on Black residents or talked of adding phony confessions to arrest reports.
Now, at the very least, any criminal defendant in a case involving one of those officers can use the allegations to undermine accusations against them.
“What’s happening right now in our county is a watershed moment for Contra Costa County. We (are) in the national spotlight for racist, homophobic, violent disclosures regarding the Antioch Police Department,” Chief Public Defender Ellen McDonnell said at the April supervisors meeting. “Experts that I’ve discussed what’s happening in Antioch with have advised me this is one of the largest and most egregious police misconduct scandals not in Contra Costa, not in California, but in our nation’s history happening right now.”
The scandal has left lawyers in the county’s criminal justice system with a massive, unprecedented problem and very little historical guidance to wade through it. While California has had its fair share of police misconduct and overturned convictions, defense attorneys have been arguing that the racism and homophobia within the police department was so pervasive, cases need to be dismissed en masse.
State law allows for a few avenues that could make this a reality: Criminal court defendants are allowed to challenge their active charges or convictions when new evidence comes to light, and prosecutors are required to turn over evidence that could call an officer’s honesty into question on a witness stand.
Then there’s the 2020 Racial Justice Act, which prohibits the state from obtaining a criminal conviction if the judge, an attorney or any law enforcement officer involved in a case “exhibited bias or animus towards the defendant because of the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
“It’s overwhelming. There’s so much that we feared and suspected for so long that is really coming true. We’re seeing a way to get justice for clients who have been unfairly targeted based on race and to see a reckoning for police who are being exposed,” said Evan Kuluk, a local defense attorney with expertise in the Racial Justice Act. “The timing of this, now that we have the Racial Justice Act, makes our ability to do something about this injustice that much stronger.”
Mass case dismissals in California are few and far between. In the 1990s, the Los Angeles Superior Court dismissed 170 convictions as a result of the notorious Rampart scandal involving criminal cops who worked on a gang squad. In 2017, the Orange County District Attorney’s overturned dozens of convictions over its use of unreliable witnesses. Already in Contra Costa, federal and state prosecutors have overturned dozens of cases that relied on the word of Antioch officers under criminal investigation.
But the racism and homophobia scandal runs much deeper.
Prosecutors, defense attorneys and politicians agree that potentially thousands of cases could be affected. District Attorney Diana Becton acknowledged to the Board of Supervisors that she’d never asked for money for new attorneys before but argued the scale of the problem warranted it. She said her office would start by looking at active cases, then move forward with an eye on potentially overturning convictions.
The audit may not be limited to Antioch cases. Several of the impugned officers worked in other parts of the Bay Area before coming to Antioch, including El Cerrito, Hercules, San Leandro, Brentwood, Martinez, and the Alameda County and Contra Costa Sheriff’s offices.
Open cases are already being reexamined in other ways. In court Thursday morning, Judge John Kennedy agreed to release a man suspected of carjacking and attempted robbery from jail, where he’d been for the past two months, because the case stemmed from a search warrant written by one of the officers involved in the racist text scandal. Prosecutors said in court that despite this problem they would attempt to salvage the case.
Though the supervisors’ vote was unanimous, two of the five-member board, Candace Anderson and Diane Burgis, expressed reservations. Anderson said the impugned officers deserved “due process.” Burgis said she wished there was a way that the county could send the bill to the city of Antioch instead.
“Do we have any way of making them have to help for that since it’s something?” Burgis said, then paused, studying Becton’s expression. “I love the look on your face. Basically they didn’t do what they are supposed to do, and they are putting us in this situation that is going to cost us money.”
