New California Criminal Laws in 2016

Happy New Year! And with it, here are five important criminal laws that went into effect.

Courts must report prosecutors for bad-faith Brady violations. This is Assembly Bill 1328. It amends the Penal Code to provide that a court must report a prosecutor to the State Bar who it finds, by clear and convincing evidence, has deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence in bad faith, and the violation either contributed to your conviction or seriously hindered your ability to defend yourself. The court may also disqualify the prosecutor from the case, and if it does, the defense may move to disqualify the prosecutor’s entire office if there is enough evidence that other employees shared in the bad faith as part of a pattern and practice. See Pen. Code § 1424.5; Bus. & Prof. Code § 6068.7(a)(5).

The police must get a new type of warrant to search your electronic data. This is Senate Bill 178. It amends the Penal Code to require a special court order before a government agent or entity can search your data in electronic devices or the cloud, including your emails, text messages, and location data. There is an exception if the government believes in good faith that it needs the data to address a life-threatening emergency, but even then, the government must apply for a warrant within three days. Other rules require it to seal, retain, or destroy your data depending on what it finds and to notify you of what it’s doing. If the government doesn’t follow these rules, you can move to exclude the evidence it obtained as a result. See Pen. Code §§ 1546, 1546.1, 1546.2 & 1546.4.

The public has a right to record the police. This is Senate Bill 411. It amends the Penal Code to confirm that you can’t be stopped for or charged with resisting or obstructing a police officer (or public official) if the officer or official is in a public place or if you have a right to be there. See Pen. Code §§ 69(b) & 148(g).

Grand juries will no longer investigate or indict cases involving police shootings or the use of deadly force. This is Senate Bill 227. It amends the Penal Code to bar grand juries from indicting or inquiring into cases involving a police officer’s use of force that led to the death of someone he or she had detained or arrested. See Pen. Code §§ 917(b) & 919(c).

The state will collect and maintain more comprehensive data on police stops and profiling. This is Assembly Bill 953. It amends the Government Code to require that state and local law-enforcement agencies collect data on every police stop and report their data annually. The data must include the time, date, and location of the stop as well as the reason for it, what happened next, and the end result. The law also expands the definition of police profiling beyond race to include gender, religion, national origin, and sexual orientation. The largest agencies have until April 2019 to issue their first report while the smallest agencies have until April 2023, and those in the middle have until 2020 or 2022 depending on their size. See Gov’t Code § 12525.5; Pen. Code §§ 13012(a)(5) & 13519.4.