Contact Us for a Free Consultation (213) 542-0979

Blog

What is the Purpose of a California Pitchess Motion?

Posted by Ronald D. Hedding, ESQ. | Aug 19, 2019

When you have a situation where law enforcement is the primary witness, or law enforcement has done something illegal related to a search, making a statement or anything the defendant can use to file a motion to try to get the case dismissed or mitigated, you want to think about doing what's called a “Pitchess Motion.”

What it is is you're trying to get the background information on the police officers associated with the case. You're looking for stuff like prior false police reports that they might have filed, lying on a police report, or any type of other misconduct that talks about their ability to tell the truth or do something illegal to the defendant. The reason you want that is that, in their personnel record, they're going to have all that type of information, even including a criminal record.

So, suppose somebody filed a complaint and claimed the officer filed a false police report. Now, your client is claiming that the police have filed a false police report against them. In that case, you can then send your investigator out to interview that particular person or persons and then try to use that person at the trial to show that the police are lying, or you can call that person as a witness in a motion, for example, saying it was an illegal stop, an illegal search, an illegal arrest, and then the judge can consider whether or not the police are telling the truth about that.

Real Case Example in Los Angeles County

I'll never forget, I had a case in one of the courts in Los Angeles county and the prosecutor had to turn over to the defense the fact that one of the police officers involved with the case had done something illegal while they were working inside the Los Angeles county jail.

We went back to Chambers to discuss the motion with the judge, and the judge said to the prosecutor, "If you need to rely on that particular police officer to make this motion, you better think again because I do not believe anything that guy says."

That's the type of power that a Pitchess Motion can have.  It's a beacon of hope, a tool that can bring on evidence that shows that the truth, voracity, and credibility of a particular witness are in question.  If that witness is crucial to the prosecution's case, it could be a game-changer, a lynchpin in a lead argument to take out the testimony of that witness and sometimes either win a motion or win a case outright.

A lot of times, people get arrested, and the only witnesses in the case are the police. So, if you can show that the police are not truthful, they don't have good credibility. If you can show that the police have lied in the past in a case, then you've got a strong foothold to make an argument to the jury that they didn't tell the truth the last time and they're not telling the truth this time.

Obviously, you're going to want to support that argument with surrounding facts—maybe your client's testimony, maybe other witnesses who might have seen what happened. Now, you start to get yourself in a strong position to say, not only are our witnesses saying this is not true, but we also have information that this police officer hasn't been true before. This preparation is your power, your control over the situation.

So, in order to win one of these Pitchess Motions, you obviously have to make a primary showing in the beginning that the police are saying something, and you have evidence in contradiction to it.  You can't just go on a fishing expedition.  You need a strong foundation and a solid case against the police, or the judge is not going to grant your Pitchess Motion.

For example, let's say the police come up on your client.  They pull him over on a traffic stop.  They claim they shined their flashlight in the car and saw a bag of cocaine sitting on the front seat.  Your client submits a Declaration as part of the Pitchess Motion saying the cocaine wasn't on the front seat.

They couldn't have seen it.  It was inside a hidden compartment inside the car.  The only reason they saw it was because they illegally searched my car.  I didn't permit them to search my car.  Now, you've put their credibility, their gluttony, in play.  You're going to be able to get the judge to go back and look to see if the officer has anything that should be turned over to you based on your case, based on your argument that the police are not being truthful.

So, if you're looking to file a Pitchess Motion, talk to your criminal defense attorney. Make sure your attorney is familiar with Pitches Motions in Los Angeles—how they're conducted, who gets served with them, and how to win them.

About the Author

Ronald D. Hedding, ESQ.

Ronald D. Hedding, Esq., is the founding member of the Hedding Law Firm. Mr. Hedding has an extensive well-rounded legal background in the area of Criminal Law. He has worked for the District Attorney's Office, a Superior Court Judge, and as the guiding force behind the Hedding Law Firm. His multi-faceted experience sets Mr. Hedding apart and puts him in an elite group of the best Criminal Defense Attorneys in Southern California.

Menu