http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/9265512p-10190639c.html 

Dan Walters: Republican is unlikely candidate for police enemies list
By Dan Walters -- Bee Columnist - (Published May 12, 2004)

Sam Aanestad is a Republican state senator from a very conservative district that sprawls over 12 counties from the Oregon border to the Sacramento suburbs.

It seems odd, therefore, that this mild-mannered oral surgeon from Grass Valley could run afoul of the state's law enforcement establishment. But two bills that Aanestad is carrying - one making it tougher for cops to engage in pursuits of fleeing motorists, the other placing restrictions on prosecution of physicians for misprescribing drugs - have landed him on enemies lists of police organizations.

Aanestad just shrugs off the soft-on-crime label that's been pasted on him, saying he's just doing what he thinks is right to curb overzealous cops and prosecutors in particular circumstances, with both bills arising out of events in his district.

"I knew we would be getting heat," he says, adding that he decided to proceed with both measures anyway.

Aanestad has dubbed his police chase measure "Kristie's Law" after Kristie Priano, a 15-year-old high school student from Chico who was killed two years ago when a van fleeing from police slammed into a car carrying members of the Priano family. It would standardize pursuit policies statewide and limit chases to instances when the public is in "certain, immediate and impending peril."

The pursuit measure was rejected by the Senate Public Safety Committee after an emotion-filled hearing, getting just three votes from liberal Democrats and none from Aanestad's fellow Republicans. "We did not volunteer to be a rolling roadblock for the police," Candy Priano, mother of the dead girl, told lawmakers. But lobbyists for police organizations said departments would face a barrage of lawsuits if the Aanestad bill became law and urged the Legislature to enact tougher penalties for fleeing suspects instead.

"Our problem with the bill is that, conceptually, what it does is make police agencies civilly liable not for their conduct but for the conduct of the fleeing suspect," said John Lovell, a lobbyist for the California Peace Officers Association and the California Police Chiefs Association.

Aanestad's second curb-the-cops measure made it through the Senate's committees and is awaiting a floor vote. And as the vote nears, many of the same police organizations are ramping up lobbying pressure against it, although on this bill, Aanestad enjoys support from influential medical groups such as the California Medical Association.

Aanestad said he introduced the bill in response to a case in his district in which prosecutors went after physicians who were using methadone in a pain management program - a relatively new medical practice. Methadone is a drug more commonly used as a heroin substitute for recovering addicts. Police raided one pain management clinic, Aanestad said, and carted off records that were critical to the treatment programs, although no criminal charges were filed.

The measure's chief provision would require prosecutors to obtain affidavits from at least two specified medical experts that the use of drugs was medically and ethically wrong before prosecuting a physician for misprescribing. It would also require authorities to provide copies of seized patients' records to the patients.

The bill has drawn stiff opposition from the California District Attorneys Association, which contends it "encroaches on the independent judgment of prosecutors to decide whether to file criminal charges" and singles out one group of potential defendants for special protection.

Privately, opponents have dubbed it the "Taliban Act," likening it to fundamentalist Islamic law making it difficult to prosecute men for rape on the testimony of female victims. They note that other professionals suspected of misconduct, including priests and teachers, don't have such protections.

Aanestad said the provisions are warranted because the science of treating pain has moved past the law and prosecutors are ignoring accepted medical practices in pursuing drug-dispensing doctors. But there's a legitimate concern over whether Aanestad is giving special political attention to fellow medical practitioners - perhaps analogous to the unwritten rule that cops never give traffic tickets to fellow cops.

Reach Dan Walters at (916) 321-1195 or  dwalters@sacbee.com . Back columns:  www.sacbee.com/walters