Marin County seeks applicants for sheriff oversight panel

Marin County is accepting applications to serve on a new commission to oversee the sheriff’s office.

The nine-member commission will be selected by county supervisors and work with an inspector general. The commission and the inspector general will have the authority to review allegations of misconduct and subpoena records and testimony.

The commission also could initiate independent investigations if it decides an internal sheriff’s office investigation was inadequate.

The deadline for applying online is Feb. 16.

Disagreement persists over who should be allowed to serve on the commission.

The ordinance that county supervisors unanimously approved in November to create the commission specifies that “the Board of Supervisors shall endeavor to appoint at least one, but no more than two, commissioners who shall have previous law enforcement experience.”

The ordinance requires commissioners with law enforcement experience to meet certain criteria. They are disqualified if they have worked as a sworn law enforcement officer within the past four years or held such a position in Marin in the last eight years. Former sworn members of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office are disqualified entirely.

Commissioners with sworn law enforcement experience must certify that they have never engaged in serious misconduct during their tenures.

Some critics of the ordinance say no one with law enforcement experience should be allowed on the commission. They also object to the fact that the ordinance bars anyone who has been convicted of a serious or violent felony in the last 10 years from serving on the commission.

“A civilian oversight commission should consist of civilians, and people with law enforcement experience are not civilians,” said Barbara Rothkrug, a member of the Mill Valley Force for Racial Equity and Empowerment. “Because of the racial profiling that exists in law enforcement, I don’t think it’s a good idea. There is a lot of bias that exists in law enforcement.”

Tammy Edmonson, also a member of the group, said that “having law enforcement representation on the commission is inconsistent with the function of the commission.”

“Civilian oversight is not that powerful a tool as it is,” Edmonson said. “The commission will only have the ability to make recommendations that the sheriff’s office will be free to disregard. They have plenty of protections in there to make sure their voices are heard.”

Edmonson and Rothkrug also object to barring people who have recently been convicted of serious or violent felonies from the commission.

“People who’ve had experience with the criminal justice system and have come out the other side probably have a really valuable perspective that is not otherwise represented,” Edmonson said. “Given the high rates of incarceration among people of color in our community, you really will be writing off a lot of people whose voices should be included.”

A committee called the Community Outreach Working Group, which made recommendations to the Board of Supervisors regarding how the ordinance should be written, also objected to having two people with law enforcement experience on the commission while prohibiting the recent felons.

In an email, one of the group’s members, Heidi Merchen, wrote that the county needs to recruit panelists “who will not just rubber stamp MCSO’s status quo but will represent and bring the voices to the commission that are committed to transformation.”

“I would love to see a currently incarcerated individual on the commission to share what it’s like to be in jail and what changes are needed to maintain dignity and safety,” Merchen wrote. “The COWG was clear that the commission needs to have people who are most impacted by the criminal legal system on it.”

The ordinance creating the commission states that the supervisors “shall endeavor to broadly reflect the diversity of residents of the county in their nominations including varying ethnicities, race, sexual orientation, economic status, age, religion, citizenship status, housing/residence status and lived experience with the criminal justice system.”

“What is going to diversify this civilian commission are the life experiences that each individual brings,” Marin County Sheriff Jamie Scardina wrote in an email. “So, allowing those with law enforcement experience is going to bring a different perspective to the group — as I believe someone with a criminal history will bring their unique vision. I think it’s fair to ask that they are ten years removed from that serious or violent conviction.”

Paul Chignell, a former San Anselmo councilman and retired San Francisco Police Department captain, wrote in an email that “it would be a mistake to exclude law enforcement professionals or to prohibit individuals with criminal convictions from serving on the oversight commission.”

“This nascent organization has been highly controversial from the outset with strong supporters and detractors,” said Chignell, who is a legal defense administrator with the San Francisco Police Officers Association. “Commissioners appointed should be ethical and unbiased and reflective of all stakeholders in this process to the extent possible.”

Cameron McEllhiney, executive director of the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement, which advised the county on the ordinance, said that “quite a few” oversight commissions around the country allow people with law enforcement backgrounds to serve as members.

“It’s not always a bad idea,” McEllhiney said. “Where it’s working well, they are able to bring a knowledge base that community members might not automatically have.”

“The most important part of civilian oversight,” McEllhiney said, “is that whoever comes to do the work does it in a way that they’re not there for one side or the other. They’re there to provide an equitable, fair, unbiased mechanism for supporting transparent and accountable policing.”