Last month, a settlement was reached in the civil rights case of Rick Prancevic, a Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office investigator who accused his employer and former Santa Maria Police Chief Danny Macagni for violating his free speech rights for actions following an open letter criticizing the chief’s policing practices.
In his letter published in the Santa Maria Times on Feb. 7, 2010, Prancevic openly disagreed with Macagni’s assertion in a previous letter that Santa Maria is not a sanctuary city, and that the chief wasn’t doing his job when it came to dealing with undocumented immigrants.
Following the letter, Prancevic was given “freeway therapy” and transferred from his job at the Santa Maria DA’s office—which was only 4 miles from his house—to the one in Lompoc more than 20 miles away, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Los Angeles federal court in May 2010.
Also as a result of the letter, Prancevic claimed Macagni became irate and “banned” him from the SMPD headquarters, forcing him to wear a visitor’s badge in sensitive parts of the police station.
Prancevic said all of this was the result of the letter, and he filed a civil rights lawsuit, listing Macagni as a defendant as well as fellow investigator David Saunders and Senior Deputy District Attorney Ann Bramsen, who was Prancevic’s supervisor at the time.
The case went all the way up to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the judges denied the defendants’ appeal to dismiss the case.
According to Mike McGill, Prancevic’s attorney, there was a meeting between Bramsen, Saunders, and Santa Barbara County attorney Josh Lynn to discuss how to deal with Prancevic.
McGill said Bramsen was calling the shots. During their depositions, McGill asked each of them if they realized they were violating Prancevic’s free speech by transferring him.
“They were just hell bent on punishing Prancevic and didn’t really want to discuss the ramifications,” McGill said. He added that it was only Lynn who voiced concern for violating Prancevic’s free speech.
The Sun reached out to Bramsen seeking comment on the story, but messages were not returned before press time.
However, Mary Pat Barry—Bramsen’s and Saunders’ attorney—tried to argue before the 9th Circuit panel that Prancevic’s employer had a right to restrict his speech because he is a public safety official, even though he wrote the letter as a private citizen.
“A government’s employer has some ability to restrain their employees’ speech in the situation of an employee being paid a salary to perform the mission of the employer,” Barry said. “And in this case, the employer’s mission was a very important one—public safety.”
In an emailed statement to the Sun, Saunders suggested that he tried to prevent any problems.
“Effective law enforcement leadership demands that when those in charge are faced with an obviously predictable problem, they take action to prevent that problem from actually occurring,” Saunders said. “I sought out and followed the best advice of counsel I could find prior to taking any action.”
Both McGill and Prancevic said they couldn’t discuss the terms of the settlement.
Throughout the five year ordeal, all Prancevic really wanted was an apology from his own office, but never got it.
“They haven’t conveyed to me any remorse or wrongdoing,” Prancevic told the Sun. “What’s very frustrating to me is that they ask for that same thing just before they are sentenced in court.”
This article appears in Oct 8-15, 2015.
