BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 256
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
256 (Jones-Sawyer)
As Amended May 4, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+-------------------|
|Public Safety |7-0 |Quirk, Melendez, | |
| | |Gonzalez, | |
| | |Jones-Sawyer, | |
| | |Lackey, Low, | |
| | |Santiago | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+-------------------|
|Appropriations |16-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Quirk, | |
| | |Rendon, Wagner, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Expands the prohibition against knowingly, willfully,
AB 256
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and intentionally tampering with evidence to include digital
images and video recordings. Specifically, this bill:
1)Specifies that the prohibition against any individual knowingly,
willfully, and intentionally tampering with physical evidence
includes tampering with a digital image or video recording.
2)Specifies that the prohibition against a peace officer
knowingly, willfully and intentionally tampering with physical
evidence to charge someone with a crime or to produce as true
evidence at trial includes tampering with a digital image or
video recording.
3)Prohibits a peace officer from knowingly, willfully, and
intentionally tampering with physical matter, a digital image,
or video recording with the specific intent that the item be
unavailable for production.
4)Updates existing law criminalizing a person's destruction or
concealment of a book, paper, record, instrument, or other
matter or thing with the intention of preventing it from being
produced as evidence to include digital images and video
recordings.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Makes it a misdemeanor for a person to knowingly, willfully, and
intentionally alter, modify, plant, place, manufacture, conceal,
or move any physical matter, with specific intent that the
action will result in a person being charged with a crime, or
with the specific intent that the physical matter will be
wrongfully produced as genuine or true upon any trial,
proceeding or inquiry.
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2)Makes it a felony for a peace officer to knowingly, willfully,
and intentionally alter, modify, plant, place, manufacture,
conceal, or move any physical matter, with specific intent that
the action will result in a person being charged with a crime,
or with the specific intent that the physical matter will be
wrongfully produced as genuine or true upon any trial,
proceeding or inquiry.
3)Provides that every person who, knowing that any book, paper,
record, instrument in writing, or other matter or thing, is
about to be produced in evidence upon any trial, inquiry, or
investigation whatever, authorized by law, willfully destroys or
conceals the same, with intent thereby to prevent it from being
produced, is guilty of a misdemeanor
4)Provides that every peace officer who files any report with the
agency which employs him or her regarding the commission of any
crime or any investigation of any crime, if he or she knowingly
and intentionally makes any statement regarding any material
matter in the report which the officer knows to be false, is
guilty of filing a false report punishable by imprisonment in
the county jail for up to one year, or in the state prison for
one, two, or three years.
5)Provides that every person who reports to any peace officer, or
district attorney, that a felony or misdemeanor has been
committed, knowing the report to be false, is guilty of a
misdemeanor.
FISCAL
EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee,
likely minor fiscal impact to the Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR). If one peace officer were convicted per
year for tampering with digital evidence, the annual cost to CDCR
would be approximately $27,000 the first year and $54,000 the
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second year, $84,000 the third year.
Minor, nonreimbursable costs for incarceration, offset to a degree
by increased fine revenue, to the extent the misdemeanor results
in incarceration.
COMMENTS: According to the author, "Increasingly, as the public
captures questionable police practices on video, it is critical
that we send a message that altering or deleting these videos will
not be tolerated."
Analysis Prepared by:
Sandy Uribe / PUB. S. / (916) 319-3744 FN:
0000321