Woodbury v. Brown-Dempsey
| Decision Date | 30 April 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. E031001.,E031001. |
| Citation | 108 Cal.App.4th 421,134 Cal.Rptr.2d 124 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Robert Korey WOODBURY, A Minor etc., et al., Plaintiffs and Respondents, v. Patricia BROWN-DEMPSEY, as Superintendent, etc., et al., Defendants and Appellants. |
Appeal from the Superior Court of San Bernardino County. Bert L. Swift and John M. Pacheco, Judges.* Reversed with directions.
Girard & Vinson, Christian M. Keiner, William F. Schuetz, Jr., Scott K. Holbrook, Sacramento, for Defendants and Appellants.
Miller Brown & Dannis, Nancy B. Bourne, Sue Ann Salmon Evans, San Francisco, and Elizabeth Rho-Ng for Education Legal Alliance of the California School Boards Association as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendants and Appellants.
Merele D. Chapman for Plaintiffs and Respondents.
Plaintiffs and respondents are five high school students in the Morongo Unified School District (the District).1 They were members of the football team accused of sexual battery and other misconduct arising out of several locker room incidents. The District proposed to expel the students at a disciplinary hearing held before the District's governing board of trustees (the Trustees). The students, pursuant to Education Code section 48918, subdivision (i)(1), requested that certain witnesses be subpoenaed to attend the disciplinary hearing. The Trustees refused to issue the subpoenas.
After the disciplinary hearings, the Trustees expelled the students. The students appealed to defendant San Bernardino County Board of Education (the County Board).2 The County Board upheld the expulsions.
The students petitioned the San Bernardino County Superior Court for a writ of administrative mandate requiring the school board to issue the subpoenas. The trial court granted the writ. The court held that the issuance of subpoenas was mandatory under the statute.
Defendants and appellants, the individual Trustees, the District, the District superintendent of schools, and the principal and vice-principal of the students' high school, appeal the trial court's ruling. They argue that the trial court misinterpreted the statute and relevant legislative history. We shall reverse.
The charges against the six students involved several discrete events that took place in the football squad locker room.
The first incident took place in late August of 2000. Plaintiff and respondent Nathan Leatherman was alleged to have made another boy lick a stick of deodorant. Leatherman then stated that he had used the deodorant to "wipe his butt."
The second and third incidents took place on the afternoon of September 6, 2000. Plaintiffs and respondents Derrick Aguilar and Glenn Briggs, and possibly others, forced another boy (referred to in the proceedings as Student A) to the ground and held him down. Plaintiff and respondent Steven Hill then slapped Student A in the face with his penis. Minutes later, Leatherman, Aguilar, and Hill, together with plaintiffs and respondents Blake Poist3 and Korey Woodbury, wrestled yet another boy (Student F) to the floor. Poist had a wooden dildo; after a struggle, the aggressors managed to pull down Student F's pants and insert the wooden dildo into his anus.
The final incident took place in mid-October of 2000. Leatherman allegedly made Student F march around the locker room with the wooden dildo in his mouth. Leatherman also manipulated the wooden dildo in Student F's mouth, simulating oral copulation. When Leatherman saw another boy watching him, Leatherman put a real chicken's foot in that boy's mouth, and made both victims march around the locker room.
The District informed the students and their parents that the principal had recommended their expulsion. The expulsion hearing before the Trustees was set for December 12, 2000. The students engaged Dr. Mark Lopez, director of a student rights advocacy center, as their representative.
On behalf of the students, Dr. Lopez wrote a letter to the Trustees, requesting that all six hearings be held at the same time, and that the hearings be open to the public. Dr. Lopez further requested that the Trustees "issue subpoenas for the purpose of requiring attendance ... of witnesses who have evidence that is relevant to this alleged discipline matter." Dr. Lopez indicated that the students believed that witnesses against them had been intimidated into making false accusations.
The Trustees responded, agreeing to hold all the hearings simultaneously and to have the hearings open to the public. The Trustees gave notice of the scheduled time and place of the hearings. The Trustees further stated that,
On December 6, 2000, Dr. Lopez wrote to the Trustees asking that numerous persons be present to testify at the hearings. Dr. Lopez adverted to his earlier, denied, request for subpoenas, and took the position that the Trustees should "accept[ ] responsibility of insuring the production of all witnesses that the students deem necessary in the presentation of the students' case." The witnesses for whom Dr. Lopez requested subpoenas included the District superintendent, the assistant superintendent for educational services, the principal and vice-principals of Yucca Valley High School, the school's athletic director and ten football coaches, the school's "campus supervisors," and a classroom aide. Dr. Lopez did not indicate the nature of testimony expected of these witnesses, except his reiterated allegations that District agents or employees somehow coerced witnesses into giving false statements, or intimidated other witnesses from coming forward, or suppressed their statements. In addition to the specifically named witnesses, Dr. Lopez stated that the students intended to call "approximately 20-25 Yucca Valley HS students." Dr. Lopez declined to name the proposed student witnesses, allegedly "because they fear that the ... administrators will threaten, harass or intimidate them prior to the hearing while they are attending school."
The Trustees replied on December 8, 2000, indicating that a number of the football coaches were not District employees, but had served temporarily during the football season as "walk-on coaches." The Trustees reported that "[a]U other employees in your request have been notified of your request for their voluntary appearance."
The administrative record contains one exemplar of the "notification" of request for voluntary appearance issued by the District to its employees. It stated:
Dr. Lopez issued a supplemental witness list on December 12, 2000, the date the hearings were scheduled to begin, naming the Trustees' president, and the District's employee in charge of attendance and expulsion as witnesses. As before, Dr. Lopez referred to his earlier request for subpoenas, repeated his allegations of intimidation and coercion, and demanded that, if the Trustees did not issue subpoenas, they assume responsibility for producing the students' requested witnesses at the hearings.
The hearings commenced as scheduled on December 12, 2000. Dr. Lopez again raised the issue of subpoenas, making an "offer of proof that the individual Trustees he had sought to subpoena would be examined concerning their role in the decision not to issue subpoenas.
In the balance of the hearings on that date, two of the victims testified in closed session. The hearings resumed on December 13, 2000, with evidence from the vice-principal who had conducted an initial investigation into the alleged incidents. The hearings were not able to be concluded on that date. The Trustees recessed the hearings to December 19, 2000. Dr. Lopez, insisting that the students had a statutory right to a continuous hearing, objected to the December 19 date. The Trustees overruled the objection, and ordered the hearings to resume on December 19.
The transcript indicates that the hearings were marred by something of a circus atmosphere, with outbursts from the parents and others who were present, including direct appeals by Dr. Lopez to the audience. A great deal of time in the initial two days of the hearings was taken up with wrangling over collateral issues and arguments. At the resumption of the hearings on December 19, therefore, the Trustees had certain remarks added to the record, appealing to those present to respect proper decorum and to allow the hearings to proceed in an orderly manner. The District's counsel and Dr. Lopez were admonished to focus their presentations upon factual matters concerning the occurrence or nonoccurrence of the events upon which the allegations were based. The advocates were further instructed not to approach witnesses or the board members, to speak only from the podium provided, to remain seated when not at the podium, to refrain from addressing the audience directly or from making gestures to the audience, to refrain from improper or argumentative questions, and to refrain from arguing with the board members or then advisor. In addition, the audience was cautioned to refrain from making displays (e.g., cheering or...
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Appendix E
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