January 3, 2000

There's something about LA

By ANDREW BERGH
Special to the Journal

The wheels of justice definitely could use an occasional lube job.

Over 31 years ago, 15-year-old Jamie Enyart went to the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles to photograph a well-known politician. The youth little knew he would wind up capturing a national tragedy on film.

The date? June 4, 1968.

The public figure? Robert F. Kennedy, who was giving a speech following the California Democratic presidential primary.

At the end of Kennedy's speech, Enyart followed him into a kitchen pantry area and began taking snapshots. As the teenager clicked away, Kennedy suddenly twisted and fell to the floor. Enyart, realizing the senator had just been shot, kept snapping pictures until the whole roll was exposed.

Predictably, Enyart and numerous other witnesses were detained for questioning by the Los Angeles Police Department. Just as understandably, the teenager's film was seized and retained as evidence. But during the booking process, the film was somehow misidentified as belonging to a George Clayton.

Later that month, the police chief formed a task force -- the Special Unit Senator operation -- to investigate the senator's assassination.

Responsibility for handling and logging all photographic evidence was assigned to two officers, who noticed that Enyart's film had been misidentified and incorrectly listed on the SUS evidence log as belonging to Clayton. But instead of changing the log, one of the officers merely added a handwritten note to identify the film as Enyart's.

If you were Enyart, you, too, would have wanted your property back. Once a jury convicted Sirhan Sirhan of shooting Kennedy, however, the police told Enyart that all photographic evidence relating to the assassination would be sealed for 20 years.

So for the next two decades, all Enyart did was hurry up and wait.

Finally, in 1987, all SUS records were transferred to the California State Archives in Sacramento. They were then made public one year later. But when Enyart promptly asked for his film back in 1988, he was told the negatives and prints had disappeared.

In 1989, Enyart, then in his mid-thirties, sued the city of Los Angeles to recover damages for his lost film. His patience was hardly rewarded, however, as the city -- I kid you not -- successfully moved to dismiss Enyart's claims on the ground he had waited too long to file his lawsuit.

Although it chewed up several more years, Enyart eventually won his appeal. The normal statute of limitations didn't apply, said the appeals court, because the police had told Enyart his film would be returned.

Enyart got more good news in August 1995.

That's when the missing film mysteriously reappeared after city employees again searched the archives. An ebullient Enyart then agreed in writing with the city as to how the negatives and prints should be transferred to the courthouse in Los Angeles.

But the first delivery was aborted in January 1996. Going strictly by the book, a records supervisor at the courthouse rejected the film because, among other reasons, it was improperly packaged and missing an inventory list. So just like that, the negatives and prints were whisked back to Sacramento.

Murphy's Law kicked in again just two days later.

After picking up the goods from the archives and flying to Los Angeles, a courier rented a car at LAX for the short trip downtown.

The messenger barely got five miles, however, before a tire went flat. And while he was calling for help, the briefcase containing the film was stolen from the rental car. Despite a police investigation and reward offer, the missing negatives and prints were never found.

Ironically, the theft of the film breathed new life into Enyart's claim for damages.

And following a seven-week trial, in late August 1996 a Superior Court jury returned a verdict against the city for over $450,000. Once interest was tacked on, Enyart had a judgment in his hands for almost $606,000.

Had Enyart at long last secured justice?

Guess again.

During the jury's deliberations, three jurors who voted for Enyart had expressed extremely negative views about the city and its police department.

The gist of their comments was that the city and its police routinely lie and hide the truth. Claiming these jurors had failed to disclose this bias during jury selection, the city had moved for a new trial -- unsuccessfully -- on the ground of juror misconduct.

But just last month, after three more years of delay, another appeals court said the city should receive a new trial. Why? Because the three jurors' biases against the city and its police force had unfairly tinged the verdict.

Will Enyart, who has now officially reached middle age, stay the course and try his case a second time? I suspect so, given his stubborn persistence thus far.

But if somebody had told Enyart in 1968 that he would never see film or money before the next millenium, I'll bet he would have written things off and found a better use for his time.

Previous columns:

• Handicaps, good and bad, 12-10-1999
• An open-and-shut case, 11-25-1999
• Praise the law, 11-04-1999
• After grief comes gimme, 10-21-1999
• Cybercow meets digitruck, 10-01-1999
• Strange, blind justice, 09-23-1999
• Court case turns on a Barney doll, 09-02-1999
• Reasonable care for shorties, 08-05-1999