In the wake of the unfolding Rampart Station police scandal in Los Angeles, state Sen. Tom Hayden has introduced legislation that would provide indigent gang members the right to public counsel even in civil gang injunction hearings.
The bill — SB 167 — would overturn a 1999 appellate court decision that rejected publicly funded counsel for gang members, and the legislation is supported by public defenders who had petitioned for the right to represent members of the 18th Street Rampart gang in L.A.
