Vela v. Superior Court

Opinion

CROSKEY, J.

In these consolidated writ proceedings we are presented with the novel question of whether a city may shield from production in a criminal prosecution, under the attorney-client privilege, those statements made by its police officers to an investigating team organized by the city’s police department to gather and preserve evidence for use by the city attorney in the defense of a possible future civil action. We conclude, under the facts here presented, that adherence to the statutory privilege protecting client privacy must give way to pretrial access when it deprives a…