Anti-Gang Law Faces Court Test : Law: State Supreme Court will review San Jose clampdown. Police say it works; civil libertarians call it unconstitutional.

SAN FRANCISCO — Stepping into a growing debate over the use of court orders to fight gangs, the California Supreme Court decided Thursday to examine how far cities can go in restricting behavior by gang members.

In a decision that will affect some of Southern California’s anti-gang campaigns, the court voted unanimously to review a San Jose injunction that prohibits gang members from gathering in public, possessing spray-paint cans and using words or gestures that refer to gangs.

Civil libertarians maintain that such orders are unconstitutional, and a lower court has ruled that San Jose cannot prohibit behavior unless it is clearly illegal. Some county judges have rejected city requests to prohibit such acts.

But law enforcement authorities maintain that such injunctions have reduced crime, and several cities have persuaded courts to issue them. The high court’s decision will determine whether they can be enforced in California.

“It’s a very important case because a number of cities . . . have been using this technique,” said San Jose City Atty. Joan Gallo. “It’s been an extraordinarily successful technique.”

San Jose went to court in 1993 to quell gang activities in a low-income neighborhood known as Rocksprings. “The people who lived in Rocksprings were terrified to leave their homes,” Gallo said. “They were literally held captive in their homes.”

A judge granted the city’s request for a sweeping preliminary injunction that substantially restricted the ability of gang members to associate with each other in a four-square-block area.

More than a dozen individuals identified by the city were not allowed to meet in public, to use or carry marker pens, nails or razor blades or to climb trees, walls or fences in the restricted neighborhood.

After the court order, Gallo said, “the gang dispersed. They no longer hold the area as turf, and the people regained the area. You can go into Rocksprings today and you see kids playing on the streets and ice cream trucks. It is a totally different environment.”

Such injunctions work because they scare gang members into compliance, said lawyer Amitai Schwartz, who has been fighting the injunctions for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“But preventive detention works too. Illegal searches work wonders. The fact that it works is practically irrelevant with respect to the constitutional issues.”

The ACLU challenged the injunction and supported a ruling by the Court of Appeal in San Jose limiting its enforcement to illegal activities, such as drinking in public.

Although he opposed Supreme Court review, Schwartz said he was not surprised the court took the San Jose case. “These gang-abatement injunctions are incredibly sweeping,” he said, “and they are a unique and unprecedented law enforcement tool.”

After reviewing written arguments from both sides in the dispute, the Supreme Court will schedule a hearing and issue a ruling within 90 days. The case could take at least a year to resolve.

“I hope these things are not given a green light,” Schwartz said, “because you are going to see a proliferation of them.”

Gallo, noting that the court also has taken two other cases stemming from gang injunctions, said she expects that the court will provide cities with a lot of guidance on the issues.

She likened an injunction restricting gang activity in a neighborhood to a restraining order granted to keep an abusive husband away from his estranged wife.