California, already well known for its de-policing, non-prosecution, and other soft-on-crime policies, has taken enabling criminals to a whole new level.
The Superior Court of Los Angeles County has recently owned up to a widespread and long-term failure in reporting criminal “arrest disposition reports” (ADRs) to the California Department of Justice (DOJ). ADRs detail a defendant’s demographic information, such as true name, arrest name, date of birth, driver’s license number, FBI and criminal ID numbers, and the outcomes of arrests (conviction or dismissal, normally reported to the DOJ as part of an individual’s criminal history record). “The report also contains conditions of probation, if applicable, along with firearms prohibitions and sex offender registration and tier.”
The court (which “serves a population of almost 10 million in 36 courthouses with a jurisdiction covering over 4,000 square miles that includes 88 cities, 140 unincorporated areas and dozens of law enforcement agencies”) explains that the almost half a million unreported ADRs include 380,000 instances of convictions, broken down into roughly 147,000 felony conviction cases and 233,000 misdemeanor cases, plus 61,000 unreported felony dismissals and approximately 23,000 misdemeanor dismissals.
Apart from the sheer volume, the reporting failure (which the court speciously calls a “backlog”) covers a lengthy period. Most were cases during a twenty-year period between 1986 and 2006, but the actual span extends almost half a century, from 1980 to 2023, ending only when the court adopted a new criminal case management system. The “root cause” was a flaw in the court’s previous system that made “it impossible for Court staff to identify instances where ADRs were not properly reported.”
California is a “full point of contact” state in which the state, not the FBI, conducts the necessary NICS and background checks for all firearm-related transactions. Among other disqualifications, state law prohibits, from firearm possession and acquisition, anyone convicted of or subject to an outstanding warrant for the enumerated felony and misdemeanor crimes, and anyone subject to a condition of probation that prohibits or restricts firearm possession. Courts are required to notify the DOJ of persons subject to these prohibitions.
The impact of this massive information management failure is that those whose criminal convictions in that court resulted in a firearm disability under state or federal law would not necessarily be flagged as prohibited in background checks. Conversely, anyone who had charges dismissed may have had their arrest or indictment result in an unfounded firearm prohibition absent an indication that the charges were no longer active, and this may have affected their employment or professional licensing as well.
Indications are that the Superior Court hasn’t investigated these consequences. In a Q&A portion of its fact sheet, the response to whether someone passed a background check due to this “technical issue” is the noncommittal “potentially,” as the “lack of conviction information in the DOJ database may have led someone to pass a background check who otherwise would not have passed if the information had been in the DOJ database.” On whether it will affect an individual’s ability to possess or purchase a firearm or ammunition, the response is equally vague: “It may. Persons convicted of charges with firearms prohibitions whose criminal history information is updated may be required to surrender their firearms.” The real impact on public safety may not be known for some time, if ever.
In more good news for California’s criminals, although the court is now “working expeditiously with the DOJ to process” the ADR backlog and update the DOJ’s records, the process is “expected to take several months.” The court is also “unable to comment on whether other courts have similar issues.”
What makes this all the more egregious is that while convicted criminals avoid the consequences of the law due to official reporting failures, California officials have no difficulty in making available the sensitive personal information of concealed carry applicants and licensees. A 2021 law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) authorized the DOJ to turn over such information to third parties; a year later, the DOJ’s “2022 Firearms Dashboard Portal” improperly exposed the personal information of every person granted or denied a concealed carry license between 2011 and 2021. The information could be downloaded before the DOJ shuttered the site, meaning it’s available in the public domain in perpetuity.
California has lost whatever institutional credibility it may claim with respect to firearm-related data management and security, yet lawmakers are even now considering a bill, AB 1743, to expand firearm owner data-sharing and access to California’s Automated Firearms System and databases.
Government blunders like these highlight the fundamental flaw of background checks: the system is only as reliable as the information fed into it. As for the “trailblazer for gun safety reform,” as Giffords calls California, it has only itself to blame for trailblazing a novel way to allow convicted criminals to arm themselves, or to prevent eligible individuals from exercising their rights (as the case may be), due to the very court system and DOJ that the public entrusts to keep citizens safe and protect their rights.
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