This proposal would conform the liability standards for arrests made through warrants transferred through an automated process to the County's Automated Warrant System (AWS) with that of the traditional, paper warrant process. The proposal would protect any peace officer who makes an arrest based on AWS information indicating a warrant of arrest that is entered by court personnel authorized to make such entries.
Current state law expressly protects any peace officer that makes an arrest based on a warrant of arrest regular upon its fact. However, County Counsel is concerned that a court could interpret "a warrant of arrest regular upon its face" to exclude a warrant issued through AWS, which could expose an arresting officer to liability.
The relevant law is Civil Code § 43.55, which states, "There shall be no liability on the part of, and no cause of action shall arise against, any peace officer who makes an arrest pursuant to a warrant of arrest regular upon its face if the peace officer in making the arrest acts without malice and in the reasonable belief that the person arrested is the one referred to in the warrant." |
Approximately three years ago, the Sheriff's Office began to convert to the AWS, which was developed and is maintained by Alameda County. As the AWS system develops, the process has recently included the automated posting of warrants onto AWS from warrants posted on the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) by Court personnel. The current process is a manual system that requires personnel to enter into AWS warrant information received from court personnel who receive the signed warrant from a judge and enter the same data into CJIS. The current system has the potential for data entry errors, delays in data entry between the time a warrant is issued, sent to AWS data entry personnel and when it is actually entered. There is also the risk that the physical transmission of a paper-copy of a warrant could be lost.
While no studies have been conducted, staff believe the automated posting of data from CJIS to AWS will reduce the potential for human error in entering the data into AWS and eliminate the delay of sending a physical copy of the warrant to data entry personnel. Staff expects the automatic transmission of the Warrant information to AWS will be:
1. Efficient by eliminating duplication of effort, 2. More accurate, by ensuring that the information contained in CJIS is transmitted as-is to AWS and
Timely by ensuring that the transmission program runs at specified times, and automatically transmits all warrants entered that day.
While the current state of AWS does not include the automated transmission of warrant recalls, it can adequately accommodate the recall process. The current recall process involves court personnel posting warrant recalls on CJIS as well as AWS, which eliminates the potential for data entry errors and the expected delay of sending warrant recalls to AWS data entry personnel. Alameda, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties are AWS participants and currently make arrests based on warrant information found on AWS.
County Counsel proposes an amendment to Civil Code § 43.55 that would define a warrant of arrest regular upon its face to include both a paper warrant as well as a warrant issued through AWS.
Civil Code § 43.55 would be amended:
There shall be no liability on the part of, and no cause of action shall arise against, any peace officer who makes an arrest pursuant to a warrant of arrest regular upon its face if the peace officer in making the arrest acts without malice and in the reasonable belief that the person arrested is the one referred to in the warrant. As used in this section, a warrant of arrest regular upon its face includes: 1) a paper arrest warrant that has been issued pursuant to a judicial order, and 2) a judicial order that is entered into an automated warrant verification system by court personnel authorized to make such entries at or near the time the judicial order is made. |
