Bad Boys, Bad Boys… Whatcha Gonna Do?

Almost immediately upon taking office as Sheriff in January 1980 I was confronted with a series of deputy sheriff misconduct cases that were more “F-Troop” than “Rodney King”. There was no question that, at the time, there was the old way things got done, and the right way. If you could get away with something and no one said anything about it, then it eventually became accepted and not something that is perceived as wrong.

A simple example: during the Monday through Friday court days, jurors at the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street were escorted to lunch by a deputy sheriff bailiff. The usual place was a café across the street from the Hall which was connected to a very large floral business called The Flower Mart. By custom, the lawyers in the case picked up the tab. The escort deputy sat at a table near the jurors and was treated to a pot of tea. The teapot, of course, was filled with booze. Who’s to know? Who’s to care?

Before learning about the famous teapot, I was approached by Tom Scanlan, the City Treasurer. Mr. Scanlan was the very picture of old time Irish San Francisco: immaculately dressed, politically discrete, observably overweight and many times re-elected. In the 1980s, Mayor Dianne Feinstein held regular Monday morning Department head meetings in her City Hall office. At the end of my first or second meeting, I was buttonholed by Treasurer Scanlan as we exited Mayor Feinstein’s office. I didn’t know Tom well, but he had endorsed my election, so I was pleasantly surprised that he called out to speak to me.

“Mike,” he began, “do you have any employees with drinking problems?”

Not knowing a whole lot about this or what he was getting at, I replied that I knew that we had sent deputies with alcohol issues to a dry out place called Duffy’s up near Calistoga in the Napa Valley.

Tom said, “Well, do you know about the bar your deputies have set up here in City Hall?” I was at a loss for words and just shook my head with a confused look.

Mr. Treasurer Scanlon then said, “Walk with me. I have an employee who regularly leaves the office for only a few minutes and comes back clearly smelling of alcohol. I know he didn’t have time to cross the street to the local bar, so one day I followed him from a distance. He went across the rotunda to a doorway underneath the grand staircase which I later discovered is the bailiff’s locker room.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. So we walked together from the mayor’s office on the second floor down to the main rotunda and past the base of the staircase. As we passed a door set into the staircase base, Mr. Scanlan, while looking straight ahead very discreetly as if we were being watched, gestured toward the door. I promised to check it out.

I had been Sheriff for only a couple of weeks. I had not yet selected my Undersheriff and was temporarily working with the hold over Undersheriff from the prior administration. To my initial disappointment, that person was Raymond Procunier who was brought in during the last days of the prior administration to shore up the Department’s reputation. Ray Procunier had previously been the very controversial Director of the State of California’s prison system and had been the subject of more prisoner lawsuits than anyone in California history. He was a well-known villain in the Prisoner Rights law seminar I taught at New College School of Law. Nevertheless, I found him to be charming, incredibly knowledgeable, frequently profane, and generally fun to work with.

After my encounter with Tom Scanlan I huddled with Procunier, who was also in the dark about the “bar” in the deputy’s locker room. We called in the bailiff supervisor, Sgt. Mary Ann deSouza, the first woman to ever hold the position. Mary Ann– a future Undersheriff herself– was also unaware of the locker room allegations. It was sort of a boys’ club thing that she had yet to penetrate. I was chagrined to discover that none of us had a key to the locker room in the base of the staircase. The three of us talked and devised a plan: After the workday, Mary Ann would have the City Hall janitor get her a key to the room and together we would take a look.

Sometime around 5:30 that afternoon the three of us entered the room under the grand staircase. It was indeed a locker room, with traditional wood lockers lined up along two walls, a bench, a couple of chairs and a large old refrigerator at the back of the room. Next to the fridge was a wastebasket already filled with empty vodka, wine, and orange juice bottles. On the other side of the refrigerator was an easy chair and a magazine stand featuring several Playboy magazines. The refrigerator door handle had been a pull-down type, but the handle had broken off and a large screwdriver was substituted for the handle.

I won’t say that Ray Procunier turned into a madman, but he moved like a linebacker to the fridge and opened it, where we saw numerous bottles of liquor and cocktail mixes and even a large bottle of cheap wine.

At this point, Mary Ann and I were mesmerized by Procunier’s frenetic movements. He grabbed the screwdriver from the refrigerator door and went over and started snapping locks off deputies’ lockers. “I know there’s more stuff in here,” he shouted. I was pretty sure this was not ok and calmed him down, saying, “Ray, I don’t think we should be doing this. There are employee rights and things like that.” He stopped popping the locks and we all took a breath. Ray relished the idea of confronting the staff the next day.

The following morning, as deputies entered their locker room, they were greeted by Ray Procunier, sitting in the easy chair holding a Playboy magazine next to the open refrigerator. He told each of them to report to his office on the third floor and await further orders.

When they all gathered in Undersheriff Procunier’s office there was a general chewing out and a demand for explanations, followed by a weak defense that this had “been going on for many years.” The lead deputy sheriff bailiff, Richie Sullivan, made a credible outraged complaint that the opening of deputies’ lockers violated the Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights and other labor laws. Ultimately, it was an embarrassment for all involved and better resolved with the time honored “verbal reprimand.”

Ray Procunier postscript. When I was first running for Sheriff and seeking to create a détente with the deputies, I had made a pledge to the Deputy Sheriffs Association that I would appoint an Undersheriff from within the Department. (A lot of good it did me– they didn’t endorse me anyway.)

In the month that Ray Procunier remained Undersheriff, I truly enjoyed his company and his incredible knowledge about corrections, but a campaign promise was a promise. As I sought to arrange interviews for a new Undersheriff, Ray told me that he would love to stay on and said, “You know, I’m actually in the Department right now so if you selected me you would be appointing from within.” But that was not going to fulfill my campaign promise. So Ray said, “At least let me sit in on your interviews and allow me to give you my thoughts.”

I did that, and having Ray participate in the interviews helped me to make the right decision when I picked long tenured Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Bill Davis as my first appointed Undersheriff.

Second postscript: City Treasurer Tom Scanlan had originally mentioned that his employee didn’t have enough time to go across the street to the bar. In the years prior to the mid-1980’s there was a bar located across from Civic Center Plaza with a back door on Grove Street (the front door was located at 1204 Market Street). The bar was named The Jury Room. In those days, the Fourth Floor of City Hall was the location of numerous civil courtrooms.

The Jury Room was a local lawyer hang out and was distinguished by bathrooms that were designated “Hung Jury” and “Split Jury.”

I don’t know what it was about the position of bailiff that seemed to routinely encourage severe cases of knuckle headedness. Maybe it was the inherent secure nature of the rank. In the Department, the first promotional level above deputy sheriff is called “Senior Deputy.” Prior to the 1980’s the Civil Service definition of a Sr. Deputy limited the work assignment to either courtroom security or civil process. In other words, no more jail duty. No more midnight or weekend assignments. 

Many employees who attained the rank of Sr. Deputy never took another promotional exam. The only way to move an employee out of those assignments was promotion to a higher rank, retirement, voluntary relinquishment or termination. The latter two avenues were never taken. So, I think the job assignment restrictions led some bailiffs to feel invulnerable and somewhat unbound by any rules or simple common sense.

Take, for example, Richie Braun, a competent, firmly ensconced bailiff. With a gambling problem. Richie was a bit of a legend in the Department, reportedly being one of the last Three Sport All-City high school athletes.

One day I got a phone call from the elected Public Defender, Geoff Brown. That’s “Geoff Brown,” nephew of former Governor Pat Brown and cousin of the future Governor Jerry Brown. Geoff called me to ask if I was aware that Richie was selling football betting cards in court right from the bailiff’s desk during breaks in trial proceedings. Geoff said that even though it was illegal, he didn’t really have a problem with football betting, but he didn’t want his lawyers involved and he thought I might not want this going on in the courtroom. 

This was another case of discretion being the better part of valor. I called up Sgt. Mary Ann deSouza and told her to put an end to Richie’s entrepreneurial activities in the courtroom.

Another enterprising bailiff once signed out an ongoing trial exhibit during a break in the proceedings, in this case a kilo of cocaine. He put it in a Safeway bag and took it down from the courtroom to the lobby of the Hall of Justice so he could show it to his wife. This was evidence from his courtroom being used in the middle of a drug dealer’s trial. He later stated that he had never seen such a large amount of cocaine and wanted to show it to his wife. That made me wonder what other quantities of cocaine this bailiff had previously seen and where he had seen it.

Nevertheless, he signed out the kilo of coke at the Court Clerk’s office and returned it after the show and tell. One problem: when the Court Clerk weighed the returned evidence, it weighed more than when it was originally booked into evidence. Understandably, when informed of this, the District Attorney trying the case went ballistic. The immediate concern (apart from not wanting defense counsel to find out) was the question whether some of the cocaine had been removed from the kilo and that whatever was substituted weighed more than the purloined dope. The cocaine was then tested many different ways, but nothing was found amiss.

The only logical conclusion was that the coke was not weighed properly when first logged into the Court Clerk’s custody. Not long after the trial ended, the Safeway bag bailiff was transferred out of the Hall of Justice criminal courts.

This same bailiff, who was not otherwise exactly an angel, had previously been admonished about fooling a friendly judge into fixing traffic tickets of fellow deputies. There had been a long-standing practice of canceling outstanding tickets and traffic warrants of prisoners being sent off to state prison. Having the outstanding warrants follow the inmate to prison just messed up prison classification and could also be used as an excuse by prisoners to be transferred back to the local court to face minor traffic matters.

This bailiff would intermix his buddies’ traffic tickets in with the prison bound inmates and present the bundle to his judge, who then cancelled them. I’m not sure how I became aware of this particular bailiff scam, but it was put to rest post haste.

Other episodes continued to astound me. One day I got a telephone call from a newly appointed judge who wondered if it was standard protocol that the bailiffs in her courtroom determined the times of day when court started and ended. She wanted to start court early, but was told by her bailiff that she couldn’t start before 9:00 AM. As I apologized, I explained, “No, it is your courtroom, your honor, and the bailiffs serve at your pleasure, no matter what hours you keep.”  It was this type of petty overreach that seemed to go on all the time with the bailiffs.

Bailiff misbehavior wasn’t limited to the criminal courts at the Hall of Justice. Prior to the 1989 Quake, the Superior Court had civil courtrooms throughout the Fourth Floor of City Hall. This was a pretty low-key bailiff assignment, except for the occasional Small Claims Court flare-ups.

Security interactions between the Hall of Justice and City Hall called for a marked car to be assigned to the City Hall bailiffs. As a marked car, it could be parked pretty much anywhere other than in fire lanes. Unfortunately, lazy drivers parked as close to the City Hall side door as possible, sometimes blocking access to the trash dumpster which led to irritated garbage men who would complain to the Director of Public Works.

At the time, the Public Works Director was an excitable and profane old timer named Dick Evans. He had an incredible range of power so It was always a winning strategy to stay on his good side. After the garbage guys refused to empty the dumpster because it was blocked by a Sheriff’s vehicle, Dick called me up and along with an apology, I said I would take care of it. The City Hall supervisor was an unconventional sergeant named Dan Parrish. He told me that he would make sure it didn’t happen again. A few weeks later, a rather irritated and cursing Dick Evans was on the phone again because of the blocked dumpster. I called in Sgt. Parrish and demanded to know who had parked the car. Parrish said it was his responsibility and he should be held accountable.

“Not good enough, Dan. I want to know who parked the car.”
“It’s my fault, sir. I’m responsible,” he replied.
“Just tell me who parked the car, Dan.”
Then, in one of the most profound misstatements of the duties of a supervisor, Sgt. Parrish replied, “I ain’t no snitch.” I never found out who parked the car near the dumpster.

I suggested to Sgt. Parrish that maybe the duties of a sergeant were not his cup of tea and maybe he should give up his stripes and revert to the comfort of a senior deputy rank. To my surprise, Parrish agreed to the demotion. He was given a new assignment organizing recreation programs for county jail prisoners. And he did a bang-up job.

It took some time, but eventually I got the Civil Service Commission to agree to new job specifications for the position of Senior Deputy. Under the new rule, Sr. Deputies still worked in the courts, but could also be assigned to the jails to assist in training and supervising those of a lower rank. Of course, the Sr. Deputies holding the position at the time of the rule change got “grandfathered in” and continued to enjoy the old rules, but the die was cast for a new day when senior deputies could not become courtroom bailiffs in perpetuity.

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References/sources: Eileen Hirst, Ellen Schumer - Chair of the SF City Hall Preservation Advisory Commission