Hammons

OPINION AND ORDER

Plaintiff, Adolph Hammons, Jr., a black resident of San Francisco, California, was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department on March 5, 1974, after a neighbor complained he had fired a gun at her. He was taken to the San Francisco City Jail, booked on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, fingerprinted, and incarcerated for one day. Plaintiff was released from custody the next day, and all criminal charges arising from this incident were subsequently dropped. However, a record of plaintiff’s arrest was preserved by the San Francisco Police Department and was forwarded to the Bureau of Identification and Investigation of the Department of Justice of the State of California and to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). These agencies maintain a record of plaintiff’s arrest.

In this action plaintiff has launched a broadside attack on the maintenance, use, and dissemination of arrest records of persons never convicted of a criminal charge based upon the conduct for which they were arrested, Plaintiff has named as defendants in this action state and local officials as well as the Attorney General of the United States, who is responsible under federal…