SAN JOSE, Calif. – ACLU of Northern California has filed a lawsuit against Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, accusing his office of withholding records that the group argues could reveal widespread racial disparities in felony charging decisions.
The lawsuit follows nearly two years of stalled negotiations over a large public records request. The ACLU asked for demographic and case-level data for every defendant since 2015, including arrest details, charging decisions, bail amounts, plea offers, diversion opportunities, and information about victims and prosecutors. The group said the request was designed to determine whether Rosen’s office “is treating people fairly and lawfully across racial groups.”
Rosen’s office has resisted that request.
In an email to media, Assistant District Attorney David Angel said the ACLU is demanding “thousands upon thousands of private records” that identify people charged with crimes. He said the office is “troubled” by the lawsuit and insists it has already shared “tremendous quantities of de-identified and aggregate data.”
“We remain convinced that, especially in today’s environment, people have a right to privacy concerning their records,” Angel said. He added that the ACLU’s request “goes far beyond what the law intends for public disclosure.”
County Counsel Tony LoPresti echoed that stance, arguing that much of the information the ACLU seeks qualifies as investigative material or attorney work product.
“These categories are not public records,” he told the ACLU during negotiations. “They are protected for a reason.” The ACLU argues the county is overusing those exemptions to block transparency.
The lawsuit asks a judge to order Rosen to release the full set of records and to rule that he violated the California Public Records Act. ACLU Executive Director Abdi Soltani said the organization is trying to make sure Rosen is honoring the state’s Racial Justice Act. “The public cannot evaluate whether the DA is following the law unless this data is available,” Soltani said. “That is the entire point of the RJA.”
The ACLU’s complaint argues that Rosen’s refusal to release the information has “subverted the RJA’s purpose” and “weakened the public’s ability to monitor prosecutorial practices.” Soltani said the DA should want the information in the open. “If the office believes in fairness, then showing the numbers shouldn’t be the problem.”
Even with limited data, the ACLU says troubling patterns appear. According to the lawsuit, Latino residents made up 25 percent of Santa Clara County’s population in 2021 but accounted for 53 percent of felony prosecutions. Black residents made up 2 percent of the population but 13 percent of felony prosecutions. The complaint states these gaps raise “serious concerns about the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
Angel disputes that interpretation. “Prosecutors file charges at the same rate across racial groups based upon the cases referred to us by police,” he said. He pointed to a public data dashboard the office publishes and to a study conducted with Harvard researchers in which racial identifiers were removed from charging decisions. “The race-blind charging study showed no difference in charging rates,” Angel said.
He added that disparities in the justice system “reflect inequities that exist everywhere, from housing to healthcare to education,” and said the DA’s Office “didn’t need the ACLU lawsuit to recognize these issues.”
The ACLU argues that the Racial Justice Act specifically requires public access to data so communities can understand how they are policed and prosecuted. “Without transparency,” Soltani said, “the law is just words on paper.”
Rosen, who has long been seen as a reform-minded prosecutor, now finds himself pulled into a growing statewide fight over how much the public should know about charging decisions. No hearing date has been scheduled, but both sides say they are prepared to take the dispute to court.
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