Court Orders California Sheriff to Release Personnel Records in Watchdog Investigation

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office must comply with subpoenas issued by the county’s civilian oversight board as part of a whistleblower investigation into alleged misconduct, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

The First Appellate Court of California tossed out the sheriff’s office’s legal justification for refusing to turn over personnel records requested by the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach, or IOLERO, in 2024.

The ruling could have sweeping consequences in California, where multiple counties are seeking greater transparency and accountability of elected sheriffs and their staff.

“ We’re glad we can move forward now on the whistleblower investigations, as the voters intended,” IOLERO’s Director John Alden said.

While little is known about the whistleblower’s complaint, some subpoenas accidentally leaked last year by the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriffs’ Association sought the personnel files of four people who witnessed alleged misconduct. IOLERO also requested two years of records related to Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram’s disciplinary decisions before he took office in 2023.

The three-judge ruling directed the Sonoma County Superior Court to issue a new order instructing Engram and his office to comply with the subpoenas.

Engram declined to comment specifically on the ruling but, in an email, stated, “We appreciate that the courts continue to provide clarity, and we remain committed to moving forward in a way that is fair, lawful, transparent, and focused on serving both our community and the dedicated employees who serve it.”

Engram has repeatedly said that he supports transparency and accountability that can strengthen public trust in the sheriff’s office, but he is also bound to uphold employee rights, legal protections and negotiated agreements with employee unions that govern IOLERO’s investigations.

Attorneys for the Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, which was also involved in the case, did not respond to a request to comment.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors established IOLERO in 2015, in the aftermath of a sheriff deputy’s fatal shooting of Santa Rosa 13-year-old Andy Lopez.

In 2022, Sonoma County voters expanded the watchdog’s mandate to include investigation of whistleblower complaints. But when IOLERO subpoenaed personnel records on four sheriff employees, the office refused.

IOLERO sued in Sonoma County Superior Court, but the judge sided with the Sheriff’s office, saying the oversight board had no authority to issue subpoenas related to whistleblower complaints.

Alden said the appeals court’s decision reversing the lower court ruling clarified important principles about civilian oversight of sheriffs that apply statewide.

“ It establishes that throughout California, when counties set up inspectors general, they have subpoena power and that sheriffs have to comply,” Alden said. ”It also says it doesn’t matter what the title of your agency is, as long as it’s clear your Board of Supervisors was using this same code section to create you.”

In 2020, California lawmakers codified the rights of civilian oversight boards to access “the personnel records of peace officers and custodial officers required for the performance of the commission’s oversight duties,” but must “maintain the confidentiality of such records.”

In his ruling, First Appellate District Justice Mark B. Simons reiterated those rights, stating “that statute grants the oversight entity subpoena powers.”

The court’s ruling also established that those powers apply to oversight entities by any other name, rejecting Sonoma County’s argument that IOLEROs could not be considered an inspector general’s office under the new government code.

“To find the Independent Office not covered by the statute simply because it is named the ‘Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach’ instead of the ‘office of the inspector general’ would be to elevate form over substance,” Simons wrote, and “undermine” sheriff oversight entities’ ability “to perform meaningful oversight.”

Subpoena power seen as key to oversight

Sheriff’s watchdog supporters have long argued that without the power to subpoena witnesses and records, their role is reduced to window dressing.

“We hope that other counties will read this opinion and understand that if they create civilian oversight entities that they automatically have the subpoena authority under state law,” said Allyssa Victory, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

The ACLU co-sponsored Measure P in Sonoma County, the law that boosted IOLERO funding and authority to investigate whistleblower complaints, and has worked closely with a number of California counties initiating or expanding police oversight. That includes Alameda County, where supervisors approved the formation of a civilian sheriff oversight board in 2024, but are still debating the scope of its mission.

“A lot of these oversight agencies at the city and county levels have been prompted by horrific acts, by gross misconduct, by systemic failures, by lethal violence,” Victory said. “And there’s so many benefits that have already been documented over those counties and cities that started decades ago: of empowering the public, increasing public trust, increasing public transparency — all those things that ACLU values.”

The ACLU was a founding member of the California Coalition for Sheriff Oversight, which also includes the League of Women Voters of California and organizations and people pushing for greater transparency and accountability in more than a dozen counties.

Even well-established oversight entities, such as the Citizen Law Enforcement Review Board in San Diego County and the Inspector General’s office in Los Angeles County, continue to struggle for access to records and witnesses.

The ruling could bolster more nascent efforts for sheriff oversight in other Bay Area counties, including San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin.

“I am encouraged by Sonoma’s outcome,” Tara Evans, a Marin County resident, said in an email.

Evans served on a citizens committee advising the Marin County Board of Supervisors on how to create robust sheriff oversight. In 2021, Evans and other residents sued the sheriff’s office to challenge its policy of sharing data from license plate readers with federal agencies and won.

Evans said she hopes the ruling helps her county’s elected leaders to “stand firm” against efforts to weaken Marin County’s Civilian Oversight Commission “and ensure that transparency and accountability are not negotiable.”

The Sonoma County Sheriff and deputies’ union has until April 24 to petition the California Supreme Court for review.

The California State Sheriff’s Association, representing all 58 county officers, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the appellate ruling. Given the high stakes for sheriff’s departments throughout California, an appeal or other intervention seems likely.