JDL Suit Dismissed for Security Reasons

In a highly unusual decision, a Santa Monica Superior Court judge cited national security Thursday as grounds for dismissing a lawsuit accusing the Los Angeles Police Department of violating curbs on abuses by police intelligence officers.

The City of Los Angeles had asked that the suit, filed by the Jewish Defense League, be dismissed because it would expose national secrets, the first time any municipality has raised such a defense, according to city attorneys and legal observers.

Judge David Rothman announced his decision after more than a month of hearings behind closed doors, including testimony by Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and experts on terrorism from the Rand Corp., according to attorneys in the case and court records.

The lawsuit was filed in May, 1984, by the JDL against the city, Gates and Larry Winston, whom the suit identifies as a Los Angeles police officer. The suit alleged that Winston, using the name Joel Kohen, infiltrated the JDL between 1979 and 1984 and unsuccessfully attempted to provoke the group to commit violent acts, including bombing the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign office on Wilshire Boulevard in March, 1984.

Television Show

One of the few pieces of evidence made public in the JDL case was the transcript of a 1976 segment of the CBS television news show, “60 Minutes.” During the broadcast, JDL leader Irv Rubin of Los Angeles admitted that he had spoken with a self-described professional assassin about killing Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Rothman, explaining his decision to dismiss the case, said the defendants would be forced to “significantly compromise not only local, but national and international law enforcement.”

Without elaborating, the judge suggested that Los Angeles police had at least conferred with the FBI in an investigation of the JDL.

“The confidentiality of federal agencies’ information is involved in this matter,” he said.

He said the city’s grounds for requesting dismissal were “unprecedented under California decisional law,” although there are precedents for claims of national security privilege under federal law.

Appeal Planned

Roger Diamond, the JDL’s attorney, said he would appeal the dismissal. Diamond said that among the grounds for his appeal will be the secret hearings heard by Rothman, from which all but the city’s witnesses and attorneys were excluded.

Rothman said he believes that procedures set up last year could adequately cope with the charges made by the JDL. The procedures include an appeal to the Board of Police Commissioners by groups that believe they have been spied upon improperly by police.

“That’s just an internal control and it’s not good enough,” Diamond said.