California AB 2773: Police Use of Force Disclosure Requirements and What They Mean for Criminal Defense in 2026

California has built one of the most expansive police transparency frameworks in the country over the past decade — SB 1421 (2019) opened personnel records in serious-use-of-force cases, and AB 748 (2019) required body camera footage release. AB 2773 adds a reporting and public-disclosure mandate that goes beyond access: it requires agencies to publish use-of-force incident reports on accessible public portals within defined timelines, whether or not a criminal proceeding is pending.

## What AB 2773 Requires

Under AB 2773, any peace officer who uses force resulting in death or serious bodily injury triggers the following disclosure obligations on the employing agency:

- **45 business days** from a sustained finding or final administrative adjudication: full incident report, including the officer's name (unless safety exemption applies), body-worn camera footage, and a summary of the investigative findings. - **Annual aggregate reporting:** Agencies must publish annual use-of-force statistics broken down by incident type, officer tenure, subject demographic data, and outcome (no finding, sustained, exonerated, unfounded). - **No suppression pending criminal investigation:** Unlike prior law, which allowed agencies to delay release pending a DA's charging decision, AB 2773 permits delay only while an officer faces criminal charges in a matter arising directly from the same incident.

## Why This Matters for Defense Practice

The immediate practical implication is discovery-adjacent. Defense attorneys handling matters where law enforcement officers are witnesses now have a public-record pathway to access prior use-of-force incidents involving those officers before filing a Pitchess motion. That is not a substitute for Pitchess — which still governs access to personnel records not covered by AB 2773 — but it changes the pre-motion research phase significantly.

Specifically, if a prosecutor calls an officer who has a publicly disclosed sustained finding for excessive force in a prior incident, defense counsel now has affirmative notice of that finding without needing to succeed on a Pitchess motion. The evidentiary question of how to use that finding at trial is a separate analysis, but the ability to know about it early enables more targeted cross-examination preparation, expert retention, and Pitchess strategy.

## Brady Interaction

AB 2773 creates a parallel public record, but it does not directly resolve questions about prosecutorial Brady obligations. The California Supreme Court's decision in *In re Sodersten* and its progeny hold that prosecutors must disclose known impeachment material even when defense counsel could theoretically access it independently. AB 2773's public portal may actually increase the scope of what prosecutors are presumed to know — and therefore must disclose — because sustained findings involving their own officer-witnesses are now systematically documented and accessible.

Defense counsel should raise AB 2773 compliance as a threshold question in any case involving use-of-force allegations: Has the agency timely published the required incident report? If not, why? The failure to publish on the statutory timeline is itself potentially relevant to a motion to compel or to establish agency notice of a systemic practice.

## For Clients and Their Families

If you or a family member was subjected to a use-of-force incident that was investigated and resulted in a sustained finding against the officer, you are entitled to access the public disclosure under AB 2773. That record may support a civil rights claim under § 1983, a California Bane Act claim, or other remedies. Civil and criminal counsel should be retained simultaneously where criminal charges are pending against the individual subjected to force — these are not mutually exclusive matters.

AB 2773 is not the final word on police transparency in California. But it represents a structural shift from records-on-request to mandatory proactive disclosure — and defense practitioners who understand its mechanics will have a meaningful advantage in cases where officer conduct is at issue.