Police Misconduct Attorney Orange County, CA

Police Misconduct Attorney Jerry L. Steering has suing police officers since 1984 for police brutality, false arrests, malicious prosecutions, wrongful deaths and First Amendment Retaliation cases. Mr. Steering is based out of Newport Beach, Orange County, California. Mr. Steering in an Expert and Specialist in suing the police in federal court for constitutional violations in Orange County and throughout the State of California.

Mr. Steering has also sued the government as far away as in federal court in Alabama and in the District of Columbia.

TWO BITES AT THE APPLE TO PREVENT YOU FROM ENFORCING YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.

If you are reading this article, chances are that your view of the police has drastically changed since the view of the police that you had before that incident with the police that resulted in you finding and reading this article.

Police Officers in Orange County are not monolithic. There are “good cops”, “bad cops” and everything in between. However, all Orange County police officers and deputy sheriffs are the same in one respect; no cops rat-out another cop; not in this world; that is unless their employing police agency want to get rid of that other violating officer.

When Orange County police officers beat-up and/or falsely arrest innocents, they typically at least attempt to procure your malicious and bogus criminal prosecution for some imaginary “resistance offense such as “resisting arrest”, (Cal. Penal Code § 148(a)(1)), resisting peace officer with violence (Cal. Penal Code § 69), battery on peace officer (Cal. Penal Code § 243(b)), and assaulting a peace officer (Cal. Penal Code §§ 241(c) and 245(c)).

Police officers know that if they convict you for one of these “resistance offenses”, that you are now almost always precluded from successfully suing the police for false arrest or excessive force.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office knows this and does its best to criminally prosecute you for “resistance offense” crimes that you are innocent of, to protect the police from civil liability. No one ever got elected to office in Orange County by promising to protect the public from the police.

Just look at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office’s Website and look at how that office “Investigates” all of the Officer Involved Shootings and Custodial Deaths in Orange County. They never find that the cops did anything wrong, even when Orange County Juries have found that the police committed outrageous conduct and killed people who did not deserved to die. See, Orange County District Attorney’s Office Officer-Involved Shooting Reports.

In reality, the police have two bites at the apple.

The first bite is your bogus and malicious criminal prosecution. If you either plead guilty or even no contest to a “resistance offense”, you are now generally precluded from successfully suing the police for false arrest or police brutality / excessive force (via either collateral estoppel or Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)).

The second bite at the apple is defending a police misconduct civil rights case in federal court. Even if you “beat the rap” (win your criminal case), the police still have the opportunity to defend your federal civil rights case against the police. That is no easy task in Orange County.

Orange County jurors are usually white, conservative and love the police. In federal court the Judge questions the prospective jurors (Fed. Rule Civil Proc. 47), and the lawyers get about 10 minutes each for supplemental questions.

Moreover, any prospective jurors who don’t think that the police are basically honest people with a tough job, are either excused for cause by the Judge, or are stricken from sitting on the jury via the lawyers for the police using their peremptory jury challenges (Fed. Rule Civil Proc. 47).

It doesn’t matter what the law says, or what the jury instruction say, or even what the evidence shows, if you cannot get an Orange County jury of white, conservative and cop-loving jurors to vote for you. Under the 7th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, any party to a civil case in federal court is entitled to a jury trial, so long as the amount sued for is over $20.00 (a 1791 figure).

In the end, all that matters is whether the jury in your Police Misconduct Civil Rights trial votes for you. If they won’t, then in the real world, you have no rights because you have no basis to enforce those rights.

THE ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN INVOLVED IN SCANDALS FOR MANY YEARS, MOST OF WHICH INVOLVE VIOLATING THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC.

In 2009 Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona was convicted of witness tampering related to his tape-recorded conversations with his self-appointed Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, to “corruptly persuade” Haidl to withhold testimony and mislead a federal grand jury investigating charges of bribery and fraud regarding Carona. He was sentenced to 66 months in federal prison.

Both of Carona’s Assistant Sheriffs, part of Carona’s “Team Forever“, was also convicted of corruption charges, including perjury and misappropriation of public funds.

Several years later, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department was involved in the “Orange County Snitch Scandal“, that involved the Orange County Sheriff’s Department paid inmate Mexican Mafia Jail informant real-deal murderers Raymond “Puppet” Cuevas and Jose “Bouncer” Peredes to “solve” “cold cases” by threatening persons suspected of old unsolved crimes to “confess” to crimes that often they did not commit.

Those two thugs were paid $335,000.00 to extract those confessions while serving time in jail. See, “2 jailhouse snitches, who were paid $335,000 over 4 years, spark new legislation“, Orange County Register, March 22, 2017

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s “Eavesdropping Scandal“, in the late 2010’s / early 2020’s involved Orange County Deputy Sheriffs listening to privileged Attorney-Client Communications. That scandal primarily involved Orange County Sheriff’s Department then deputy sheriff Matthew LeFlore, who is also deeply involved in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s latest scandal; the “Evidence Booking Scandal”.

In the “Orange County Evidence Booking Scandal”, between 2016 and 2020, 30% of Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputies were found to have booked evidence late, or not at all, and to have lied in their police reports about their booking of evidence.

Mr. Steering had sued the two Orange County Sheriff’s Department Sergeants who planted evidence in his case (methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin) in an attempt to frame Mr. Steering’s client, Ace Kelly. See, Buena Park man sues for $30 million, claiming OC sheriff’s investigators planted drugs, Orange County Register, May 3, 2024. Incredibly, those two Sergeants were promoted from deputy sheriff to that rank by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, after Matthew LeFlore was found to have secretly recorded privileged Attorney-Client Communications, and after now Sergeants Matthew LeFlore and Arthur Tiscareno were found to have failed to book evidence, and after they were discovered lying about booking that evidence in their police reports.

EXAMPLES OF MR. STEERING’S OTHER CASES AGAINST THE ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

David Andrews v. County of Orange; U.S. District Court (Santa Ana). David Andrews was accosted and detained by Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriffs for failing to identify himself to them. When the deputies started to leave, Mr. Andrews called the Sheriff’s Department to complain about the deputies, they returned to him, tased him and took him to jail.

David Andrews was unlawfully detained for sleeping in his car on private property; something that is not a crime. When the deputies let him go and started leaving the scene, Mr. Andrews called the Sheriff’s Department to complain about the deputies. When the deputies heard that 911 call from Mr. Andrews, they returned to him, tased him and took him to jail.

In Gomez v. County of Orange; U.S. District Court, Santa Ana, the survivors of Jason Gomez received a $2.1 million settlement for the wrongful death of Jason Gomez at the Orange County Jail due to suffocation via positional asphyxia.

Jason Gomez was incarcerated at the Orange County Jail on a Probation Violation. The jail refused to provide Mr. Gomez with his psych medications for five days. This caused him to return to a semi-psychotic state. When the jail nurse finally handed him his medication through the jail bars, he grabbed her arm and broke it. The jail deputies proceeded to perform a cell extraction, and Jason Gomez he fought them from doing so. The deputies then placed Mr. Gomez in a jail restraint chair with his hands behind him, that suffocated him from positional asphyxia; in this case known as a Palestinian Hanging.

Torrance v. County of Orange, U.S. District Court (Santa Ana); Skip Torrance recovered $380,000.00 after having been shot with a taser obtained after jumping out of his bed when deputies illegally jumped the wall surrounding his home, entered his bed room and shook him by his underwear, causing him to jump out of bed.

Skip Torrance is the All-America boy, and a high-ranking bank executive. One Thursday evening he was strolling with his friends at the monthly Laguna Beach Art Walk event. At the end of the evening, Mr. Torrance home to his exclusive Dana Point home, and went to sleep. Meanwhile, some rather drunken adults actually had a fist fight in the cross-walk at the intersection of Cress and Pacific Coast Highway in Laguna Beach. The male had fled the scene, and when a “Mrs. Kravetz” type saw Mr. Torrance holding his toe that he just stubbed on the curb, and crying out in pain, she told the Laguna Beach police who were detaining the adults who did not flee the scene, that she thinks that she saw the man who fled. That man turned out to be a local Laguna Beach resident; not Mr. Torrance.

Laguna Beach PD Detective Larry Bammer ran Mr. Torrance’s plate, saw that he lived in Dana Point, and called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department to arrest Mr. Torrance. The deputies drove to his home, jumped the seven feet high block wall surrounding his home, entered his bedroom through the rear slider, and woke-up Mr. Torrance by pulling on his underpants. He jumped out of bed and was tased by the deputies, and taken to jail; an innocent man.

Chamberlain v. County of Orange, U.S. District Court (Santa Ana)(2009); obtained $600,000.00 for failure to protect pre-trial detainee in the Orange County Jail.

John Derek Chamberlain, 41, was killed Oct. 5, 2006, in the Theo Lacy Facility in Orange. An autopsy found he had been beaten in nearly every area of his body and had injuries similar to those from “a high-velocity car accident or a fall from multiple stories”. Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriff at the jail told the white shot-caller at the jail that Mr. Chamberlain was accused of child molestation, that his house was dirty (that he had a white child molester in his jail dorm), and to “clean his house” (to beat or even kill the inmate accused of child molesting) . In fact, he’d been charged with possessing child pornography. Veteran Jail Inmates have their own perverted code of justice in the jails, and although murder is lauded, a child molesting charge will get an inmate murdered. That is exactly what happened.

Butano v. County of Orange; U.S. District Court (Santa Ana); Orange County paid $727,500.00 to settle a civil rights lawsuit by a South County woman who accused sheriff’s deputies of storming her house, slamming her face into the ground, taking her to jail and seizing her children – all because she refused to answer the door.

Nancy Butano was at home with her two eighteen-month old children when Orange County Sheriff’s Department deputy sheriffs entered Butano’s home without a warrant, without permission and without identifying themselves. Ms. Butano was on the phone and Deputies Stumph and Martino ordered her to get off the phone. When she didn’t immediately come to the door, the deputies began battering Ms. Butano, twisting her arms behind her back. When Butano asked why Stumph and Martino were in the house and told Stumph to let her go because she had done nothing wrong, an officer told her to “shut up” and stated that “we are the Orange County Sheriffs and we are conducting a criminal investigation.” They took her to jail and had her children temporarily taken away by Child Protective Service.

Spring v. County of Orange, U.S. District Court (Santa Ana); James Spring, 62, recovered $500,000.00 for injuries suffered by him when the jail staff knew that he had a hernia, and nonetheless forced him to work in the jail kitchen.

James Spring, who had been homeless, entered Theo Lacy jail in September 2019 to serve a 60-day sentence for misdemeanor possession of methamphetamine. Spring, 62, had a hernia when he arrived. A jail nurse excused him from having to work while in custody, but neglected to give him a written release — called a “chrono” — to show deputies, When deputies ordered Spring to work, he told them about his medical condition and that he had been excused. But Spring didn’t have a written release to show the deputies. Because of his kitchen job, Spring suffered a ruptured hernia and was rushed to Anaheim Global Medical Center. During surgery, a doctor severed a nerve, leaving Spring unable to feel his penis.

Sharp v. County of Orange, U.S. District Court (Santa Ana).

In 2000, an Orange County Superior Court jury awarded Merritt Sharp III $1,000,000.00 for a 45 minute detention of his person for the warrantless search of his Auto Body Shop. Seventeen years later, Mr. Sharp again obtained $250,000.00 following a landmark Opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, when that court held that when law enforcement officers are entering a residence with an arrest warrant for another, or even for a probation or parole search, that peace officers may not detain anyone but the target of the arrest warrant, or the parolee or probationer. Now, because of the Sharp v. County of Orange case, if one is west of Utah in the United States, the officer may only detain such warrant target, and no one else.

Baima v. County of Orange, U.S. District Court (Santa Ana) $208,000.00 for excessive force.

Corey Baima was stopped by Orange County deputy sheriff pursuant to a call for service by Baima’s grandmother for playing his video games too loud. When the deputies stopped Mr. Baima, he walked toward them to find out why they stopped him. They slammed on the hood of his car, and tortured him when he told them that he knew his rights.

Mr. Steering has also had many acquittals in Orange County Superior Court; especially in cases involving false arrests. See, Celli v. County of Orange, et al; U.S. District Court (Santa Ana); $208,000.00 for false arrest / unreasonable force following acquittal in Superior Court for resisting arrest.

If you are the victim of police misconduct, such as a false arrest, the use of excessive force, a malicious criminal prosecution, first amendment / free speech retaliation, or other police outrages, we can help you. Call Jerry L. Steering at (949) 474-1849 or email Mr. Steering at jerry@steeringlaw.com.

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