Spock v. District of Columbia, 5860.
| Decision Date | 20 October 1971 |
| Docket Number | No. 5860.,5860. |
| Citation | 283 A.2d 14 |
| Parties | Benjamin McLane SPOCK et al., Appellants, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellee. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Stephen C. Rogers, Washington, D. C., with whom William H. Allen, Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellants. Ralph J. Temple, Washington, D. C., American Civil Liberties Union Fund, was also on the brief for appellants. R. Raymond Twohig, Jr., Washington, D. C., entered an appearance for appellants.
Leo N. Gorman, Asst. Corp. Counsel, with whom C. Francis Murphy, Corp.
These 75 appeals present the question whether, and to what extent, the courts of the District of Columbia have power to order expungement of the arrest record of a defendant who asserts mistaken arrest and exoneration. Necessarily included in that question is the availability of an order affording some relief by preserving the arrest record but in such factual completeness that its ordinarily feared consequences, both to the person arrested1 and the government or its agent,2 are eliminated. The precise factual setting for all the cases is not the same. One common factor, however, reveals the purpose for consolidation of them by the trial court. The arrests arose out of mass gatherings of people at different places in early May, 1970. To some, the congregations amounted to so-called demonstrations in exercise of protest rights. Another common factor is an assertion by each appellant of factual innocence of objective wrongdoing.
The arrests were made, as appellants characterize them, on "minor charges, principally disorderly conduct". Six appellants were tried and acquitted. Thereafter, those who had also been charged by informations were relieved therefrom by entry of a nolle prosequi. As to the others, the prosecution decided not to file an information and, where appropriate, posted collateral was refunded.
Some of the motions were supported by affidavits or other papers explaining the circumstances of the arrests.
The trial court denied the relief sought on the basis that it lacked power, in the absence of specific legislation, to take the requested action. The denials were without prejudice to requesting modified relief if the request was supported by an affidavit revealing the facts of the arrest and "the reason for the disposition made by the prosecutor." The purpose of the renewed motions was with a view to relief by way of "an appropriate entry [being] made in the court and law enforcement agency records regarding the ultimate disposition of these charges." In denying the instant motions, the trial court appeared, in part, to be following our decision and the concurring opinion in Irani v. District of Columbia, D.C.App., 272 A.2d 849 (1971). Since we remand these cases for further proceedings, it is necessary to decide several questions raised by the order on appeal and by the various kinds of relief sought. In so doing, it is appropriate to more fully set forth the law in this jurisdiction respecting so-called arrest record "expungement" motions.
Since, as already noted, limitation on dissemination of the police records, and notification of court action on the motions to any recipient previously furnished the records were also sought, it is necessary to consider whether the trial court could properly grant that or related relief. It is also necessary to consider the adequacy of requiring entry of the ultimate disposition on all records and of conditioning such relief on a factual showing regarding the arrest and the reasons for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.
In Morrow v. District of Columbia,4 the court, in a "limited" holding, ruled that the Court of General Sessions had "power to issue an order regarding [an] arrest record in a criminal case which [had] been before the court."5 This court has also held that where collateral has been posted, but no information later filed, the trial court has power to grant "some relief" to one seeking a limitation on the use of arrest records. Irani v. District of Columbia, supra. Although Menard v. Mitchell, 139 U.S.App.D.C. 113, 430 F.2d 486 (1970), treated the general problem of limiting arrest records, that decision related to an F.B.I. record of an arrest by Los Angeles police and in no way dealt with the power of local courts to order expungement of local police records under applicable statutes. In short, it can be said that the question of power to order outright expungement has not been squarely met in this jurisdiction.
To be sure, we spoke in In re Alexander, D.C.App., 259 A.2d 592 (1969), of unusual facts which might justify ordering a particular arrest record completely expunged. Such was not a holding since this court decided the case without necessarily reaching the question of judicial power to order complete expungement. We simply held on the facts presented that a lesser form of relief, administrative in nature, was sufficient. Likewise, the holding in Irani v. District of Columbia, supra, is no more than that an uncontroverted affirmative showing of factual innocence of objective wrongdoing is sufficient for some relief. The case was remanded for the trial judge to consider in the first instance the appropriate available relief. It must be recognized, however, that the decision in Irani contemplated the difference between an affirmative showing of no culpability on the one hand, and a verdict of not guilty by the reasonable doubt standard, or an unresolved question as to guilt due to lack of prosecution of the case, on the other.
The requests for complete expungement in these cases are in terms of destruction "so that no record of the arrest or of the fact that a record existed shall remain." Appellants expressly do not request destruction of court records. In their brief they also concede, consistent with Morrow v. District of Columbia, supra, 135 U.S. App.D.C. at 173-174, 417 F.2d at 741-742, that destruction of the entry in the arrest book could not have been ordered. See note 3, supra. In that case the United States Court of Appeals recognized that D.C.Code 1967, § 4-134(4), requires arrest books to be publicly maintained so that no arrest can be secret. Thus, as to physical destruction, the motions relate to all other records including photographs and fingerprints.
In deciding if complete expungement is properly within the scope of ancillary equity power of a court, or for that matter within general equity jurisdiction, the first question to be answered is whether the law requires maintenance of the relevant records. In the District of Columbia there is such a requirement. D.C.Code 1967, § 4-137 provides:
"All records of the Metropolitan Police force shall be preserved, except that the Board of Commissioners, upon recommendation of the major and superintendent of police, may cause records which it considers to be obsolete or of no further value to be destroyed."
This provision obviously relates to records required to be kept under section 4-134, supra, and central criminal records required under D.C.Code 1967, § 4-134a,6 as well as records of receipt and disbursement of money posted by appellants as collateral,7 photographs and fingerprints. As just observed, the court in Morrow, supra at 173-174, 417 F.2d at 741-742, recognized that the statutory requirement that the arrest book records be public precluded their destruction or obliteration. Consistent with that conclusion, it is plain that section 4-137, supra, is controlling insofar as destruction of police records is sought. We, therefore, hold that in the absence of specific statutory authority,8 destruction of records of the Metropolitan Police Department cannot be ordered. This holding is consistent with the requirement of maintaining police records of arrests later treated as detentions under D.C.Code 1967, § 4-140(a) (Supp. IV, 1971) (see S.Rep. No. 912, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 17-18 (1967)), and the concept that secret arrests are "odious to a democratic society"9 not only during but after detention when the threat of rearrest could be used to prevent disclosure of the detention by the person arrested.
There remains yet another reason why destruction of arrest records, in the absence of specific legislative control, should not be permitted. As was observed in Morrow:
"* * * The inquiry might be better directed to the question: what valid law enforcement purposes are served by retaining * * * the arrest record in a particular case?" [Id. at 175, 417 F.2d at 743.]10
Of recent date the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that an arresting officer, his superiors and the District of...
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...jurisdiction, 300 U.S. at 240, 57 S.Ct. 461. Thus, we now make explicit that which we implied in Spock v. District of Columbia, D.C.App., 283 A.2d 14, 20 n. 16 (1971) — the Superior Court has authority to award declaratory judgments in cases within the jurisdiction of that The central contr......
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