Pittsburg, with a population of about 75,000 people, is about 45 miles east of San Francisco, in Contra Costa County.

The events that led to the dismissals against the 15 defendants began in early 2014, after officers Michael Sibbitt and Elizabeth Ingram were investigated after reports that they falsified arrest reports and used excessive force, such as beating suspects with flashlights.

At the time, Lieutenant Wade Derby was the head of internal affairs at the police department. Derby would later say that as he investigated the actions of the two officers, he was also trying to comply with so-called Pitchess↗ motions, which are filed by defense attorneys to access personnel records of law-enforcement officers. The government agency that employs the officer, not the prosecutor, is responsible for compiling the records, which are then submitted to a judge for review before any release. The prosecutor doesn’t know the contents of the material given to the judge.

Sibbitt and Ingram were placed on administrative leave on June 18, 2014. Sibbitt would later say in a wrongful discharge lawsuit against the city that his bosses gave him two options: fight the misconduct allegations and face termination and possible criminal charges, or resign immediately and the internal affairs report would be “buried.”

Sibbitt and Ingram, who filed a similar lawsuit, resigned on July 29. The report was never completed.

Beginning in May 2014, Derby pushed the Pittsburg Police Department to comply with these disclosure requests and submit these internal records to judicial review. He would later say that Police Chief Brian Addington rebuffed him and ordered Derby not to draft a summary of his internal affairs investigation. This response, Derby said, continued for the next year as the cases handled by Sibbitt and Ingram made their way through the courts.

On October 6, 2015, Derby told a judge in Contra Costa County Superior Court about the existence of the internal affairs files on Sibbitt. Although no longer with the department, Sibbitt was still supposed to testify in a murder case. (After the disclosure, prosecutors pulled Sibbitt as a witness.)

Addington would later tell Derby that the department complied with the Pitchess motion, but there was no judicial inspection of the records because the defense had not met its burden to force the issue.

Two weeks later, Addington notified Derby that he would not renegotiate an extension of his contract, which required him to leave in early 2016. Derby filed a lawsuit against the city in March 2016, claiming Addington and others retaliated against him for speaking out about what he said was Pittsburg’s failure to comply with requests for information related to Pitchess motions.

Addington told the East Bay Times that the documents were withheld by accident. “Now that we’ve learned about these inadvertent errors, we have taken the correct legal steps ... to make sure these individuals have the due process afforded to them,” Addington said.

Both the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office and the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office began a review of cases involving Ingram and Sibbitt. On December 12, 2016, prosecutors filed stipulations and motions to vacate 15 convictions based on the failure of the Pittsburg Police Department to turn over records related to the alleged misconduct by the two officers, which could have been used as impeachment evidence.

For example, Ingram arrested Carl Schoppe on June 3, 2014, just before she was placed on administrative leave. Ingram said she believed she saw Schoppe put something into his truck, where police later found a gun and methamphetamine. Schoppe’s passenger told Ingram the items were hers. Prior to trial, Schoppe’s attorney filed a Pitchess motion related to Ingram, but it yielded no records. Schoppe pled guilty to the possession charges and was sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Based on available court records and newspaper accounts, the defendants in Contra Costa County were convicted of non-violent crimes, including drug possession, resisting arrest, and giving false information to the police. Most received minimal sentences in jail or prison, and most—if not all the defendants—pled guilty. The earliest wrongful conviction occurred in 2013.

“Reading between the lines, these cops were problematic and their information should’ve been disclosed way back when,” Deputy Public Defender Diana Garrido said. “It would’ve had an impact on their cases.”

None of the Contra Costa defendants are believed to have received compensation for their wrongful convictions. Derby’s lawsuit was dismissed. Sibbitt and Ingram’s lawsuits were settled, each receiving $47,500, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Members of this group

Here are the known members of this group exoneration. The hyperlinked names are also listed in our main Registry: Linda Camell-Ireland, Rita Edwards, Scotland Finau, Robert Freeney III, Benjymon Holloman, Hilario Martinez Jr., Michael Moss, Chuong Nguyen, Carl Schoppe, Warren Stingley, Kevin Takei, Cassandra Tompkins, Braden Wenger, and Michael Wilson.