LAPD's Special Order 40 on immigrants upheld by court [Updated]

An appeals court Wednesday upheld the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Order 40, a policy governing how officers interact with immigrants.

The three-judge panel of the California Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with a lower court’s decision to throw out a lawsuit in which a Los Angeles man had argued that the LAPD’s policy violated federal and state laws.

In place since 1979, Special Order 40 prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally.

Police Chief Chief William J. Bratton and others before him have said the policy is an important tool, as it encourages undocumented immigrants who witness crimes to assist police without fear of being deported.

The judges rejected the claim of the plaintiff, Harold Sturgeon, that the order violates a federal statute, which prohibits restrictions on the exchange of information between federal immigration agents and other law enforcement officers.

They said he failed to show any instances in which officers had been punished by superiors or otherwise discouraged from passing on information.

The LAPD’s policy, the judges emphasized, does not place any limits on the information that officers can pass on to federal agents regarding a person’s immigration status.

[Updated at 5:09 p.m. “The decision today really affirms that if LAPD officers feel they need to maintain that trust with the community, that the law allows them to do that,” said Belinda Escobosa Helzer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which represented community groups that are helped by the policy in the case.]

—Joel Rubin

Comments

[Mary]

I would offer citizenship to individuals that come forward with information leading to the arrest and conviction of criminals, and depending on the severity of the crime, pushing them to the front of the line.

Including gang hubs, organized crime families, and drug dealers.

Give automatic green cards to those that truthfully report employers that hire illegal labor.

[James Andrews]

Bad Policy. Enforce the law or change it.

[Collis Huntington]

Our courts confirm again that undocumented does not always mean illegal.

[Diddy]

Another win for the PEOPLE illegal and legal.

[Vindicated]

I'm sure there's never been an instance where a superior has punished an officer for passing on information. No reason to, either. There are very few illegal immigrants here in Los Angeles so a situation like this has a very small chance of having ever occured.

[no sanctuary]

We don't have enough problems with illegal alien gangs, drugs, graffiti, robbery, rape and hit and run drunk driving fatalities, so this will allow known illegal alien gang members to continue hanging out openly on the streets until they are caught for murdering innocent Americans and other felonies as has been well documented.
So we're trading American lives and well being for exactly what PC theory again?
The ACLU, progressive judges, Villaraigosa (former MEChA activist), La Raza et al are doing a great job of turning large sections of LA into 3rd world Tijuanas.

[Walter Moore]

The plaintiffs, in my opinion, based their case on the wrong federal statute.

The plaintiffs alleged that Special Order 40 violates a statute that forbids cities from preventing their police from reporting violations to the federal government.

The plaintiffs should have instead alleged that Special Order 40 violates a federal statute against aiding and abetting illegal immigration.

This ruling does NOT establish that Special Order 40 is legal. Rather, the ruling establishes merely that it does not violate the former statute. Whether Special Order 40 violates the latter is open for litigation.

[Louweegie272]

What a travesty. If Special Order 40 did not exist, Police could ask obvious Gang Members if they were here legally and if not,
deport them. Because of SO40, criminal illegal aliens are convicted, serve jail time, then get released back on to the streets of Los Angeles, when they could and should have been deported. Jamiel Shaw, an 18 year old African American high school student and star athlete is dead because of SO40. His family now is suing the City. Where was the ACLU for Jamiel?
Where are they on the Latino on Black escalating hate crimes?

[George]

what a shame...

[John Stickler]

The public's understanding of Special Order 40 is that Los Angeles police officers are proscribed from detaining a suspect even if they recognize him as an illegal alien criminal who was previously deported.

[nwkerr2005]

Keep voting Democrat and we will keep getting Police chiefs who intentionally flaunt the law and liberal appointed judges who make law and rules from the bench.

[Robert Chapman]

Does anyone need to wonder any longer as to why we are in such trouble with immigration? Our court system is backstopping La Raza, et al, in their quest to retake the territory of California which was ceded during the Mexican-American War of 1836. Can reparations be far behind? If this is the road we want to travel then I say the hell with waiting and lets just give them what they want. Let's see if they can salvage this once proud state from its profound decline in time. America is dead, long live La Raza!!!

[Juan]

For an attorney of an organization named American Civil Liberties Union to act as a advocate in support of foreign nationals merely shows how her organization should be regarded as (the) "Mexican American Legal Defense Fund" (MALDF) under another name.

[david jenson]

Why enforce any laws....look at the number of hispanic gangs we have here filled with illegals...

[Haddit]

What were the judges names?

[Flaberghasted]

"the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which represented community groups that are helped by the policy in the case"
Don't you mean that the ACLU helps ILLEGAL ALIENS to break the laws of the United States? This policy makes the lives of all citizens and especially legal aliens more likely to be negatively affected by the criminal activities of the ILLEGAL ALIENS who are protected by the policy.

[Big Jim Slade]

Special Order 40 and the Hart Cellar Act of 1965 turned Los Angeles into a sewer and this idiotic court seems intent on keeping it that way.

Lest we forget what the idiots in Washington (and Los Angeles) are capable of, "Kennedy, speaking of the effects of the act, said, "First, our cities will not be flooded with a million immigrants annually. Under the proposed bill, the present level of immigration remains substantially the same.... Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset.... Contrary to the charges in some quarters, [the bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from any one country or area, or the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia.... In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change as sharply as the critics seem to think.... The bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."

The act's supporters not only claimed the law would not change America's ethnic makeup, but that such a change was not desirable."

Dancing at the ol' Boshoi...

[Odd]

It's odd that the day after this story ran this story appeared in the same paper:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-baby-murder18-2009jun18,0,5104977.story

Are we, as citizens, missing something? Or is it our elected / appointed officials that are missing something> namely Bratton!

[Lola]

I don't know why we have to go through all of these hoops to enforce the law. They are here illegally, get them out. As far as building community trust, etc. That is just a ruse. These people come from cultures where you never tell the police...behold Mexico's drug cartel problem. If the citizens told, you would be able to catch the criminals. I guess this is just another part of their automatic rhetoric like, "...they are just trying to take care of their families" "they need to come out of the shadows..."

[Big Jim Slade]

Today's lead story... enough to make you sick. Let's get these judges chucked out!

"After an infant was mistakenly slain in a shooting, the Mexican Mafia wanted those responsible killed. The shooter, attacked by members of his own gang and left for dead, is now aiding investigators."

[David in Los Angeles]

It's amazing how Special Order 40 has done so much harm to the City of Los Angeles ...

[Del Webb]

Special Order 40 is probably constitutionally illegal but what can one expect from the City of Los Angeles?
LA now Stinks and the entire country knows it.
(so does San Francisco)

American leadership is supposed to protect us but instead
caters to special interests and allows illegal foreigners to destroy our cities and murder Americans.

We have no true leadership anymore.

[Del Webb]

To show how evil government is today:

Illegal aliens can make up fake documents and LA
leadership is ok with it?
Like Bratton said "if you don't like it move."

That is the type of anarchy we have today in the late great
United States.

Everyone is going to pay for this you watch!

[levotb]

Well said, Walter Moore! There should be a class action suit of Californians against Special Order 40 who are willing to take their case all the way to SCOTUS if necessary.

[dharc]

When the cops start getting tortured and their heads cut off like the cops in Mexico you'll see Bratton crying like a baby and running back to Boston . But it will be to late for the good people of L.A.