ACLU reiterates call for investigation into Vallejo city attorney’s office following council action

VALLEJO - The Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union reiterated its call for an investigation into the Vallejo City Attorney’s Office on Monday, two weeks after the Vallejo City Council authorized a preliminary inquiry by an outside law firm.

ACLU senior staff attorney Allyssa Victory wrote in Monday’s letter that the City Council’s decision on Dec. 9 to contract with Shaw Law Group, PC, to conduct a preliminary inquiry into whether a formal investigation of the City Attorney’s office is warranted, is unnecessary. 

The city ought to immediately investigate various claims that City Attorney Veronica Nebb mishandled allegations of misconduct by officers of the Vallejo Police Department, Victory wrote.

“The Shaw group proposed a 30-day timeline to make a written recommendation to the city,” Victory wrote. “The ACLU believes this preliminary step is unnecessary and the Council should contract for a complete investigation immediately. Yet we nonetheless commend the city for taking seriously the numerous, credible, and alarming allegations against the City Attorney’s Office.”

The city did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday on the ACLU’s request.

The preliminary inquiry process comes several months after the ACLU published its July letter accusing Nebb and her staff of various misconduct. It cited that the city attorney’s office destroyed records from multiple police shootings and obstructed civilian oversight of the Police Department. It also questioned whether the city attorney’s office participated in the Vallejo Police Department’s “suppression of extensive records of misconduct” and failure to investigate allegations of misconduct and retaliation.

Following the release of the letter, the City Council moved to hire an external law firm to consider whether an investigation into the claims is warranted, but this month held a public hearing to contract with a different firm. 

Numerous Vallejo residents spoke at the December meeting demanding that an investigation take place rather than waiting for an inquiry. During that meeting, Mayor Andrea Sorce also asked that an investigation consider new allegations which have come up since the letter from the ACLU was submitted. 

Sorce didn’t specify which allegations she was referring to, but in a deposition in a civil rights case in October, former Vallejo police Chief Shawny Williams said that the city attorney’s office had threatened and intimidated him, including in preparing for the deposition. The city attorney’s office blocked further questions about the allegation, citing attorney-client privilege.

Victory also requested on Monday that an investigation into Nebb’s office include different questions around staff’s conduct, including how much knowledge staff had about the Vallejo Police Department’s practice of not bringing required misconduct records to court.

The July letter cited the deposition testimony of former Vallejo police Capt. John Whitney in a civil rights lawsuit. On Monday, Victory noted the Vallejo Sun’s reporting this month that an attorney for the city admitted in court that Vallejo police kept a separate filing cabinet for internal affairs, preventing defense attorneys from accessing complaints of officer misconduct relevant to their defense.

The admission came one day prior to the city council’s vote to contract for an independent investigation, Victory noted.

“This allegation, like the destruction of records noted above, implicates the rights of criminal defendants and civil litigants and raises similar questions,” Victory wrote in the letter. 

Victory asked that the city include additional questions as part of an investigation, such as who created the alleged separate record-keeping system, how files are determined to be placed in it, who was aware of and responsible for the system at the Solano County District Attorney’s Office and how many civil and criminal cases the separate system may affect. 

“Ultimately, the city must conduct a complete and independent investigation into all allegations against the City Attorney’s Office as noted in our original letter,” Victory wrote. “The city will not get out from under the cloud of mistrust that hangs over its City Attorney’s Office and the VPD until the extent of any cover-up is made transparent, and accountability and transparency are secured.”

Yoel Haile, director of the branch’s Criminal Law & Immigration Project, told the Vallejo Sun in an interview Tuesday that it was important that the city changed law firms after having previously selected a legal firm that had relationships with the city attorney’s office and conflicts of interest.

“We had some serious concerns about that. In other words, if you bring in a firm that already has a relationship with the entity under investigation… it’s like having the police investigate themselves, which is how we got in this situation in the first place,” Haile said. “It is very rare and usual that a city will look into its own city attorney misconduct.” 

Haile said he hopes by February to see a conclusion that the city needs to conduct a full investigation and that the preliminary inquiry can begin answering some questions identified in Victory’s letter. 

“This could reopen hundreds of cases in the civil or criminal context,” he said.