jerry

Reporting from Sacramento — Gov. Jerry Brown ushered in a new era of transparency in California law enforcement on Sunday, signing two new laws that for the first time give the public access to internal police investigations and video footage of shootings by police officers and other serious incidents.

The measures begin to undo decades of laws and court decisions that had made California the nation’s most secretive state for police records.

“With Governor Brown’s signature, California is finally joining other states in granting access to the investigatory records on officer conduct that the public truly has a right to know,” said Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), the author of one of the measures, Senate Bill 1421, in a statement.

Here’s how California became the most secretive state on police misconduct »

Skinner’s bill allows the public to view investigations of officer shootings and other major uses of force, along with confirmed cases of sexual assault and lying while on duty.

The availability of these records will allow the public to press California police departments and elected officials in ways not possible before, said Peter Bibring, director of police practices at the American Civil Liberties Union of California, which was a principal supporter of both bills.

“People have seen there are systematic problems and the police aren’t being held accountable — or at least the public isn’t aware of it because it’s secret,” Bibring said. “That’s something the public is not willing to ignore.”

Legal experts also say SB 1421 could have a significant effect on the state’s justice system by allowing broader access to records that could bear on the credibility of a police witness who has a history of discipline for dishonesty or other significant misconduct.

California is the only state in which even prosecutors cannot directly obtain officer personnel files. Under the current system, prosecutors and criminal defendants must navigate a labyrinthine process in court to glean information from those files. The procedure, which requires filing a so-called Pitchess motion, often yields only the name and contact information of a complainant against an officer.

A recent Times investigation into secrecy surrounding law enforcement discipline found that past misconduct by police witnesses, whether alleged or proven, routinely is kept hidden in court as a result of California’s confidentiality laws.

The new law opens up interview transcripts, evidence and full investigatory reports to the public, prosecutors and defense attorneys alike.

“This is revolutionary,” said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. “It would unveil what we have been wanting for a long time.”

Lara Bazelon, a professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, said the measure could expose officer misconduct that was long withheld from defendants and could lead to numerous convictions being dismissed.

“We are going to see a lot of skeletons falling out of the closets dating back years, if not decades. That means people who were convicted unjustly and unfairly will finally get a chance to be heard,” Bazelon said.

Contra Costa County prosecutors tossed 19 convictions in 2016 and 2017 after a police lieutenant revealed to a judge that files showing internal investigations into two officers had not been disclosed in criminal cases featuring the officers.

California’s rules prohibiting the public release of law enforcement records date back four decades. At the time, police unions and other law enforcement officials were complaining that criminal defense attorneys had flooded departments with requests for complaints against officers. Before the 1978 law was passed, the Los Angeles Police Department shredded four tons of prior complaints against officers that hadn’t resulted in a finding of wrongdoing.

In previous years, law enforcement labor groups waged aggressive campaigns to successfully shut down attempts to loosen the state’s police confidentiality laws.

Police unions opposed SB 1421 as well. Brian Marvel, the head of the Peace Officers Research Assn. of California — the state’s largest law enforcement labor organization — said he worried the new disclosure rules would put officers at risk. Earlier this year, protesters angry over the killing of Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man in Sacramento, gathered at the wedding of a police officer after identifying him as one of the officers who shot Clark, and Marvel said releasing more information about officers could lead to more confrontations that could turn violent.

“There would be a greater potential for officers and their families being harmed by having all of their information being put out publicly,” Marvel said.

Labor officials had used similar arguments in the past to defeat transparency proposals. But Marvel said their position wasn’t as effective this year because public opinion has shifted against officers, pressuring lawmakers to act differently. Legislators and civil rights activists similarly have cited the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and increased scrutiny on police killings of civilians as reasons why SB 1421 passed when prior attempts at changing the transparency laws failed.

Brown signed the original 1978 police confidentiality law during his first term in office. He did not issue a statement after signing the bill, and a spokesman declined to comment on the decision.

Besides the open records law, Brown signed a second measure, Assembly Bill 748, requiring departments statewide to release body-worn camera and other video and audio recordings of officer shootings and serious uses of force within 45 days unless doing so would interfere with an ongoing investigation.

This law, modeled after a new LAPD policy on releasing body-camera video, makes California’s rules for releasing footage some of the most transparent in the country, according to research by Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The body-camera law also breaks a long stalemate in the Legislature over setting statewide rules on releasing the police recordings. Multiple proposals in recent years either to make the videos public or limit access had failed before AB 748.

“Public access to body camera footage is necessary to boost confidence and rebuild trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve,” said Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author, in a statement.

The new transparency laws could spur more efforts to increase public access to policing records in the state. Marvel, the police union leader, said he’d like to release body-camera footage of day-to-day interactions officers have with community members, such as typical traffic stops, so that the public has a better sense of what regular policing is like.

“If the only thing we’re releasing is negative contacts with people, then that becomes the narrative,” Marvel said.

The new open records law takes effect Jan. 1. The body-camera law won’t be implemented until July 1 to give police departments more time to update their policies on disclosure.

Coverage of California politics »

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UPDATES:

5:45 p.m: This article was updated with comments from the bills’ authors and additional information about the governor’s decision.

This article was originally published at 5:25 p.m.

Eighty years ago, though the Arsenal of Democracy had vanquished the Axis and weathered a withering Depression, the recovering American people found themselves rich in bills but short on laughs. Enter Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, who debuted together on July 25, 1946.

Unlike Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, or Hope and Crosby, who relied on tightly scripted setups, this disparate yet kindred duo captured America’s heart by being viscerally, uproariously and unpredictably wild.

Martin and Lewis were the founding fathers of an anarchic, side-splitting brand of comedy that combined pratfalls, ad-libbed wordplay and a sustained demolition of the fourth floor. Orson Welles observed that the duo’s combustible zaniness was so hilarious that it made you wet your pants.

The boys cavorted about the stage, kibitzing with bandleaders and the audience alike. In between trading impromptu quips, Martin and Lewis overturned tables, cut ties, sheared suits and spritzed seltzer on one and all.

The suave, dashingly handsome Italian crooner clowning around with his gawky, rubbery Jewish buddy brought the house down every time. It was nonstop, jocular pandemonium: Commedia dell’arte 2.0.

“Saturday Night Live,” Second City, David Letterman, Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler all owe a debt to the artists who started life as Dino Crocetti and Joseph Levitch.

Martin and Lewis created a novus ordo seclorum, in its way innovating like America’s founders, spawning a new comedic order of the ages.

Their alchemy was as ineffable as it was infectious. Variety’s first review of the act noted, “All they do cannot be detailed, but virtually every bit of it is good for solid laughs.” Carl Reiner similarly declared: “I saw what I thought was the funniest ad-libbed thing I had ever seen. It was a riot, and we never stopped laughing.”

In their own madcap way, Dino and Jer epitomized Cicero’s notion that comedy is the imitation of life, the mirror of custom and the image of truth.

Martin and Lewis became the monarchs of all media, conquering radio, nightclubs, television and the silver screen. In 1948, they appeared on Ed Sullivan’s first television show, “Toast of the Town.” From 1950 to 1955, the Martin-and-Lewis-hosted “Colgate Comedy Hour” frequently bested Sullivan in the ratings.

When Hollywood beckoned, the boys answered the call, cavorting, cutting up and reconfiguring reality on the silver screen. They starred in 16 films, bringing their boisterous bromance to capacity-crowd movie theaters.

Though their big-screen adventures could not capture the comedic chaos of their stage act, Martin and Lewis transformed even the most pedestrian screenplay into box-office gold. As film critic Ciara Maloney explained, “Their brilliance shines through the weakest material: the ineffable, bewitching something between them — an intimacy, an immediacy, an ingenuity — frozen in amber for those of us who would never see it in the Copacabana.”

The essence of this duo was the outré interplay between the Prince and the Putz, the Leading Man and the Monkey. Though he was the comedian by trade, Lewis fully credited Martin as the “genius” of the pairing: “He kept the center. He was the spine of the act. And the monkey was constantly attached to that spine, on the spine, next to it.”

From “Sailor Beware” to “The Stooge,” “Living It Up” and “Artists and Models,” theirs was a comedy partnership that came to symbolize America. It is little wonder that presidential historian Tevi Troy called the 1950s “The Martin and Lewis Decade.”

However, many Americans didn’t see these two celebrities as distant icons. Film critic Jenna Ipcar has described how “a perfect comedy duo will make their audience feel like a lucky participant instead of just a passive observer, a welcome guest in a secret world.” Martin and Lewis embodied that ideal.

The boys’ bittersweet final performance took place at New York’s Copacabana on July 25, 1956. Exactly 10 years after their debut in Atlantic City, N.J., Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis had pioneered a new brand of comedy, soothed postwar America’s psyche and made a nation laugh again.

Rosario A. Iaconis, chairman of the Italic Institute of America, writes about Italy and its cultural influence. He is at work on a novel about Harry S. Truman.

Baseball players are superstitious — it comes with the territory.

But not even UCLA coach John Savage, who has coached the Bruins since 2004, has seen something that rivals pitcher Angel Cervantes and his mini toy dinosaur, Jerry.

A two-inch triceratops, Jerry sits behind the 6-foot-2 freshman every time the righty takes the mound, serving as a familiar — albeit tiny — face Cervantes can turn to for reassurance.

“[Cervantes] used the word childish,” Savage recalled. “And I kind of like that because that’s the first thing you think, like, ‘What the hell? Baby dinosaur? What are we doing?’ And so, he got a little chuckle out of it. He doesn’t take himself too serious, and I like that from a young guy. But it’s something that he loves and works off and, you know, good for him.”

Jerry took the world by storm as Cervantes, making his postseason debut Sunday, tossed five scoreless innings in UCLA’s 3-2 11-inning win over Oregon in the Big Ten championship game. The broadcast crew zoomed in on the dino, and the rest remains history.

Cervantes didn’t expect his mini dinosaur to be a hot topic throughout college baseball. The pitcher found it “crazy” to see himself and Jerry showered with love in social media posts shared by ESPN and MLB.

However, as the virality increases, Cervantes has been an open book about Jerry.

“Jerry, he’s a big part of my plan,” he said. “He just keeps me calm.”

The triceratops has been calming Cervantes since his senior year at Downey’s Warren High School.

In George Redfox’s photography class, Cervantes and his classmates were assigned to take pictures of mini dinosaurs on the ground at varying angles. With the longtime teacher’s approval, Cervantes and a friend kept a pair of dinosaurs; one was named Tom, and the other Jerry, inspired by the show Cervantes loved watching with his dad growing up.

Cervantes first placed Jerry behind him on the mound during a game at Angel Stadium and has made it routine ever since.

“I put my hand on my lid, I look down, and I close my eyes,” Cervantes said of his superstition. “And once I open my eyes, I look at Jerry, and that’s when I know it’s time to go. If I’m [ahead] 0-2, I like to slow myself down. I don’t want to think ahead. Or, after a first-pitch strike [or] the beginning of the inning, you know, whatever. Whenever I think the moment’s getting a little big, I want to slow things down.”

Some players pat their gloves. Others chew gum or spit seeds. But Cervantes? He just looks at his little pal.

UCLA pitcher Angel Cervantes holds his good luck toy dinosaur.

(Joaquin Ruiz / For The Times)

As Savage said, the arrangement is unique.

However, what works, works. And the Bruins, when they’re not worrying about stepping on Jerry or watching the tiny-but-mighty dino get obliterated by a grounder up the middle, are all for anything that will empower Cervantes to be his best.

“I remember seeing [Jerry] for the first time in the fall, and I just thought it was funny,” UCLA junior catcher Cashel Dugger said. “I think it’s just his thing, and it keeps him comfortable out there. And if he’s comfortable out there, then I think everybody else is good for it …”

Jerry didn’t just help Cervantes thrive in the biggest game of his life to help the Bruins earn their first Big Ten conference title.

Rather, the dino helped Cervantes evolve from an adapting freshman into a trustworthy arm — that enters the NCAA tournament with a 3.86 ERA with just one run given up over his last five outings — in a rotation that needed a boost, as right-handed ace Logan Reddemann has been out with arm soreness since mid-April.

“He was not ready, three [to] four months ago, to be a weekend starter,” Savage said of Cervantes, who the Pittsburgh Pirates selected with the No. 50 overall pick in the 2025 MLB draft. “In terms of Angel, it’s really been a fun progression. It’s really, I think, the epitome of development, of not rushing a guy with high expectations. I mean, he [was the] 50th pick … you would think [he’d] be plug-in-and-go. But in today’s world of college baseball, being barely 18 years old … he just wasn’t there yet, and he needed to fall.”

Jerry isn’t on UCLA’s roster and probably won’t be sized for championship rings any time soon.

But don’t get it twisted: there’s only one tiny dinosaur Cervantes looks to when he feels the heat, or for a lift when he falls. The two, quite literally, are inseparable.

“He’s in my backpack,” Cervantes said when asked where Jerry goes after games. “So, he’s still with me. I don’t want to keep him in my pocket — maybe I’ll grab my wallet, and he suddenly falls out. I’m always on top of where I keep him.”

Jerry has the trust of everyone in Westwood as UCLA begins its quest for a second national title in program history on Friday against Saint Mary’s.

The Bruins love him. The fans love him. Heck, even umpires can’t help but smile when met with the triceratops.

“Every time they do checks — like, they check my hands and glove — they’re always asking what’s in my pockets or hand, because before they do that, I put Jerry in the pocket. And I just put my hand out, and Jerry’s just right there. ‘Oh, OK, cool. Go get ‘em.’ So they’re always having a smile on their face.”

Cervantes and the Bruins still have a ways to go before they’re champions of the world. But if anything is certain, it’s that Jerry will be there every step of the way, whether on the mound with the freshman or in his backpack.

Oh, and if Cervantes ever gets to make that dream big-league appearance one day, he made it clear: He’d do everything he could to share the experience with Jerry.

“Someone said that if the batter ever gets mad and goes up to the pitcher, that Jerry will be right behind him,” Cervantes said of his favorite social media comment about his mini companion. “And that we should get a helmet for Jerry.”