(Editor's Note: Sunshine Week, March 12-18, was an opportunity to consider how open our governmental bodies are to the public. Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware, helped IN Los Angeles gain access to court documents in the Sarah Chavez case. This is an edited version of his op-ed on www.calaware.org.)

By Terry Francke

[This] is a good time to take stock of California's commitment to open government in terms of both its laws and its practices.

The Police State of Denial, Part One

The law enforcement sector (police and sheriff's departments, CHP, district attorneys, and the attorney general) is the only domain in California government whose total operations -- from a routine traffic stop to the most complex criminal prosecution -- are entirely secret by law and beyond the reach of public records law. If and only if a case goes to court (and few ever do) does the community have a window on how and why these agencies are performing or declining to do so. Cases long since closed, or those dropped for unclear reasons, are born under wraps and stay that way, not because investigators and prosecutors have no choice but secrecy, but because they almost never choose to forego it.

Solution: Amend the California Public Records Act to conform to how the federal Freedom of Information Act deals with law enforcement confidentiality. Under those rules, the FBI, DEA, and other such agencies must release closed case files, withholding only matters of personal privacy, confidential informant identities, confidential investigative techniques, procedures or guidelines, or facts whose release could endanger a person's safety.

The Police State of Denial, Part Two

In California, information about particular peace officers -- including their level of training, compensation, and even fitness for the public trust -- is uniquely off limits from citizen inquiry. To protect officers from the reputational abrasion of releasing to the public every complaint from every person -- criminal or otherwise -- that they encounter in their often-alienating work, the Legislature in 1978 declared that peace officer personnel files are confidential. They can be obtained only in court-controlled discovery by a criminal defendant or by a civil plaintiff suing for the officer's alleged misconduct or excessive force. Coincidentally, however, the California Court of Appeal that same year set a different standard for disclosure of complaint and discipline records of all other state and local government employees: If a complaint about significant wrongdoing leads to discipline, those facts and who they concern become open under the California Public Records Act. Minor complaints, or those found baseless, remain confidential.

Solution: Place peace officers under the same "bad apple" disclosure standard as other government workers. While it may be true that they are on the receiving end of more baseless complaints, those of a serious nature that are confirmed by their departments should be disclosed. Those entrusted with deadly force and the authority to detain, question, investigate and arrest their fellow citizens need to be at least as publicly accountable for serious wrongdoing as others in public service.