Printer-friendly version
By Ken Stone, Times of San Diego, a member of the San Diego Online News Association
Photo: Sheriff’s Department booking photos are sought for Andrea and Jesus Cardenas (inset) by La Prensa San Diego publisher. Times of San Diego photo illustration
February 7, 2024 (Chula Vista) -- We’ve all seen booking photos of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani and even sports figures like O.J. Simpson and soccer star Hope Solo.
But who has viewed the mug shots of arrestees Jesus Cardenas and his Chula Vista councilwoman sister Andrea Cardenas?
Certainly not Arturo “Art” Castañares, publisher of La Prensa San Diego.
So after the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department denied his Public Records Act request for the booking photos of the Democratic siblings, he’s gone where no media outlet in California has gone before.
He sued.
And a First Amendment expert calls it “an important test case.”
In a six-page complaint filed last week in downtown Superior Court, journalist Castañares — through attorney Cory Briggs — wants a judge to order the sheriff and County of San Diego to cough up the photos.
On Jan. 2, less than five hours after a renewed request by Castañares for the photos, sheriff’s spokeswoman Melissa Lopez Aquino wrote him: “It is the policy of the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to release booking photos only when there is an immediate threat to public safety.”
She also contends that booking photos are not among the list of “disclosable information” under the California Public Records Act.
Aquino added that the state attorney general “has stated that a sheriff has discretion to release copies of booking photographs of arrested individuals.”
That attorney general was Bill Lockyer, the former state Assembly member from San Diego. He issued his mug-shot opinion in 2003.
But David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, told Times of San Diego on Monday that the California Supreme Court has explained that this exemption from public-records rules “applies only to a record that ‘on its face purport[s] to be an investigatory record,” citing Williams v. Superior Court, 5 Cal. 4th 337, 356 (1993).
“Thus it could be argued that the investigative records exemption does not include booking photographs, as courts elsewhere have suggested.”
Castañares hopes his earlier public-records suit — to gain access to drone video footage from the Chula Vista Police Department — will strengthen his mug-shot case.
Open-records expert Loy says an appeals court ruling in the drone case “may help. We’ll see.”
“I think there’s an argument for saying the booking photos are not covered by the investigatory records exemption,” he said in a phone interview. “Obviously the attorney general has disagreed with that and I think that’s why it is certainly right for the court to decide whether that attorney general opinion is correct.”
If a court sides with Castañares, it would apply not only to the Cardenas booking photos but also any others that aren’t judged to be investigatory records.
On Monday, sheriff’s media relations director David LaDieu said: “We do not comment on pending litigation.”
And what of Andrea and Jesus Cardenas?
In November, they pleaded not guilty to criminal charges stemming from an allegedly fraudulent federal loan.
The siblings are accused of fraudulently obtaining a $176,227 Paycheck Protection Program loan in early 2021 intended for their firm, Grassroots Resources, then using the funds on personal expenses, including a $33,500 check to Andrea Cardenas’ Chula Vista City Council campaign account.
Jesus Cardenas, 40, who served as chief of staff for San Diego City Council member Stephen Whitburn until earlier in 2023, faces up to four years and four months in prison.
And the drone-video case?
In mid-January, the city of Chula Vista said it would ask the California Supreme Court to review a lower court’s ruling that found not all drone footage captured by its police department is exempt from public disclosure.
Recent comments