Times DUI Rubber-Stamping Story Hints at How SPD Hides Behind Public Records Law

Stephen Hayne

When the state Supreme Court decided two weeks ago that police internal-investigation reports should be publicly disclosed even when accusations against officers are not upheld, the justices based their ruling on a healthy sunshine element of document releases: The public had a "legitimate interest" and would be better off knowing how the investigations were done, even if the cops' names weren't revealed.

The underlying suspicion was that a police department wasn't as concerned about protecting a wrongly accused officer from exposure as much as it was worried about keeping the details of the probe and the department's internal actions under wraps. Now, thanks to some digging by The Seattle Times and documents provided by a helpful attorney, we have a good example of the legitimately interesting details the Seattle Police Department, for one, had kept hidden by invoking the non-disclosure claim.

After the Times reported in March that SPD officers were literally rubber-stamping drunk-driving arrest reports with a sergeant's name, it sought more details from the department, including sending record requests for internal-investigation documents.

But as investigative reporter Steve Miletich wrote Friday:

Seattle police declined to disclose the names of the officers or details of the internal investigation under a public-disclosure request filed by The Times, citing its policy of not releasing that information in cases where officers have been cleared of wrongdoing.

That was apparently prior to the recent high-court ruling, and cities are still debating how exactly they will deal with the new disclosure demands. More challenges, court battling, and dallying, are expected.

No matter. The Times was able to link up with Stephen Hayne, a Bellevue attorney who specializes in DUI cases. He had a copy of the internal report and, better yet, it was unredacted.

While the paper was able to inform the public in March only that a sergeant who had allegedly permitted the improper screening remained under investigation, it could now report:

. . . the department has found that two members of the DUI Unit, Jonathon Huber and Jonathan Young Jr., routinely used the sergeant's signature stamp without having their arrests approved by him as required by policy, according to an internal-investigation report obtained by The Seattle Times.

A third officer, John Velliquette Jr., put written statements in his reports indicating his sergeant had screened his arrests, even though the sergeant had not actually reviewed the cases, the June 22 report said.

Witnesses indicated the sergeant told the officers he had "preapproved" their arrests and offered his signature stamp, according to the report.

Though Seattle police union Sgt. Rich O'Neill back in March called the investigation an unfair reaction to a "paperwork snafu," the Times was also able to now say that not only were reports rubber-stamped in violation of department policy, some were falsely certified.

At least one DUI defendant is seeking a dismissal based on the certification question, and others are sure to follow. The signature violations have been ongoing for as long as 25 years.

It was only in recent decades that SPD began to withhold internal reports such as the one Hayne disclosed, apparently deciding the best way to deal with their inner turmoil was not to let anyone know it was going on.

As SW recently reported, government documents filed in a Seattle police brutality lawsuit shows that all use-of-force complaints since 2008 were dismissed by SPD, raising questions about how those decisions were so uniformly made.

Hopefully, the high court's ruling will be fully implemented in the coming months and the public will routinely learn more about how Seattle police--currently the subject of a federal investigation--operate.

But, as Miletich noted in his earlier story on the ruling, "It remains to be seen whether police will seek to block the release of investigative records on other grounds, such as citing an exemption that allows the withholding of documents to protect effective law enforcement."

The key is "effective," and whether it is a big enough word to hide behind.

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