(CN) - The 9th Circuit on Wednesday resurrected the retaliation claims of a Burbank detective who says fellow officers threatened him with violence and jail time to hide their harsh interrogation techniques.
Angelo Dahlia, a detective in the Burbank Police Department, sued the city of Burbank, Chief of Police Tim Stehr and three officers in 2009 after being placed on administrative leave. The suspension came just four days after Dahlia had told Los Angeles Sheriff's Department investigators about the violent tactics allegedly used on suspects in a 2007 robbery.
Dahlia claims that he saw defendant Lt. Omar Rodriguez grab a suspect by the throat and jam a gun under his eye, saying, "How does it feel to have a gun in your face motherfucker." He says he heard other suspects being beaten behind closed doors by defendant Sgt. Edgar Penaranda, and that defendant Lt. Jon Murphy and Stehr had both approved.
Dahlia alleges that he complained about the beatings to Murphy several times, but was told to "stop his sniveling." The department's internal affairs unit began an investigation in 2008, after which Dahlia says Rodriguez and Penaranda began harassing, threatening and intimidating him to keep quiet. Rodriguez even threatened to have him arrested on a phony case and put in jail, Dahlia claims.
Dahlia says he kept quiet until 2009, when he reported all of his allegations during an interview with an LASD investigator.
He claimed in a federal retaliation lawsuit that he had been suspended for asserting his First Amendment rights, but U.S. District Judge Margaret Morrow dismissed the case for failure to state claim. She found that there was no First Amendment issue because reporting misconduct was part of Dahlia's official duties as a police officer. Morrow also found that the suspension was not an "adverse employment action."
A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit affirmed in August 2012, citing 2009's Huppert v. the City of Pittsburg. The judges did so reluctantly, however, and four months later the appellate court agreed to reconsider the issue before a full, 11-judge panel. The initial panel also found Stehr immune from the lawsuit, and that ruling stands.
The court convened the en banc panel in part to consider whether Huppert v. City of Pittsburg remained good law. In that case, the majority held that a California detective had acted according to his official duties when he assisted a district attorney and the FBI with a corruption investigation after his chief had told him not to.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, noted that it petitioned for the rehearing.
In a unanimous but hardly harmonious ruling Wednesday, the appeals court revived Dahlia's claims and remanded them to the District Court. The 11-judge panel also jettisoned Huppert v. City of Pittsburg and concluded that courts must make a "'practical' inquiry when determining the scope of a government employee's professional duties" in such retaliation cases.
Public Citizen attorney Scott Michelman credited the decision with helping to ensure transparency when "public officials are engaging in misconduct."
"Courageous police officers like Angelo Dahlia are in many circumstances the public's best or even only available source of information about police corruption and abuse," Michelman said in a statement.
Dahlia was also represented by Michael Morguess with Lackie, Dammeier, McGill & Ethir of Upland, Calif.