AB 354 directs the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to adopt a regulatory definition of “serious misconduct,” gives the commission and its investigative division clearer authority to suspend, revoke, or cancel peace officer certifications, and spells out when and how investigations and temporary suspensions proceed. The bill enumerates categories of misconduct that can trigger decertification — from falsifying reports and evidence tampering to participating in an organized “law enforcement gang” — and authorizes access to otherwise confidential criminal justice records for decertification reviews.
This is a structural accountability bill. It centralizes and standardizes the grounds for stripping a peace officer’s certification, imposes a three-year rule for completing POST investigations (with specific tolling exceptions), requires long-term retention of investigative records, and limits where POST may reach back in time to decertify officers for pre-2022 conduct.
The changes will affect hiring, internal affairs workloads, litigation risk, and how agencies coordinate with POST on misconduct investigations.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires POST to adopt a regulation defining “serious misconduct” and authorizes revocation, suspension, or cancellation of certifications for officers who meet those criteria or who are ineligible under existing law; it empowers the division to review agency files and access restricted criminal justice records for decertification purposes. The bill also creates a temporary-suspension mechanism, a three-year investigation clock with tolling rules, 30-year record retention, and limited retroactive reach.
Who It Affects
All California law enforcement agencies and their certified peace officers, POST’s board and investigative division, employing agencies’ internal affairs units, and entities that hire former officers (including other agencies and private employers conducting background checks). Police unions and defense counsel will also be affected due to expanded administrative exposure and evidentiary access.
Why It Matters
It centralizes decertification standards at POST and grants the division broad investigatory tools that can pierce traditional confidentiality barriers — a meaningful shift in oversight capacity. Agencies should expect closer coordination with POST, potential upstream impacts on hiring and liability, and pressure to document and complete internal investigations within the statutory framework.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill starts by giving POST clear authority to remove a peace officer’s certification when the person becomes ineligible under Government Code section 1029 or when they are terminated for cause or otherwise engage in “serious misconduct.” POST can also cancel certificates if it finds fraud in the application process. Those authorities make clear that certification is not merely a record of qualification but an ongoing credential subject to administrative discipline.
POST must define “serious misconduct” by regulation; the statute lists illustrative categories that the commission’s definition must cover. The list ranges from dishonesty tied to criminal or misconduct investigations, abuse of power, physical abuse and excessive force, and sexual assault, to demonstrations of bias and participation in a “law enforcement gang.” The text describes a law enforcement gang by reference to identifying symbols, coordinated unlawful conduct, and protection or retaliation within the group — language designed to capture clique-like patterns of corrupt or discriminatory conduct.The bill places primary responsibility for completing misconduct investigations with the employing agency but gives POST’s division authority to review files, duplicate records, and conduct its own investigations.
For that purpose the division has the investigative powers given under Article 2 of Government Code Section 11180 and may inspect otherwise confidential criminal justice information when it is part of a decertification inquiry. The commission, its board, or the division itself may trigger investigative work; board referrals to the division must be by majority vote.Procedurally, POST must finish a division investigation within three years of receiving the agency’s completed internal report, although that clock is tolled during appeals or criminal prosecutions and does not run when an agency failed to report the conduct.
The executive director can immediately order a temporary suspension of certification upon arrest, indictment, discharge for covered grounds, or separation during a pending investigation if suspension is deemed in the public’s interest. Finally, the bill requires POST to retain investigation records for 30 years (with a narrow destruction exception) and treats voluntary permanent surrender of a certificate as equivalent to revocation, with no reactivation allowed.
The law also limits POST’s ability to initiate decertification for conduct before January 1, 2022, except in specified serious categories or when an employing agency finalizes its investigation after that date.
The Five Things You Need to Know
POST must adopt a regulatory definition of “serious misconduct” and the statute lists nine categories (dishonesty in investigations, abuse of power, excessive force, sexual assault, bias, egregious unlawful acts, participation in a law enforcement gang, failure to cooperate with misconduct investigations, and failure to intercede).
The division may access and duplicate otherwise confidential criminal justice information — including California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System data — solely for decertification investigations.
Investigations initiated by the division must be completed within three years after receiving the agency’s completed internal affairs report, but the period is tolled during administrative appeals, judicial proceedings, or criminal prosecutions and does not apply if an agency never reported the conduct to POST.
The executive director can order an immediate temporary suspension of certification when an officer is arrested, indicted, discharged for covered grounds, or separates during a pending investigation, based on a written finding that suspension serves public health, safety, or welfare.
POST may initiate decertification for conduct before January 1, 2022 only for certain offenses (specified dishonesty or sexual assault provisions, the use of deadly force resulting in death/serious injury, or when the employing agency issues a final determination after January 1, 2022).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Grounds and immediate bases for revocation, suspension, or cancellation
This subsection lays out three discrete statutory bases: mandatory revocation when an officer becomes ineligible under Gov. Code §1029; discretionary suspension or revocation for termination for cause or engagement in serious misconduct; and cancellation where POST finds applicant fraud. Practically, this means decertification can follow either a categorical ineligibility or agency disciplinary outcomes, and POST has an independent fraud remedy to remove improperly issued certificates.
Required definition of 'serious misconduct'
The statute compels POST to adopt a regulation defining serious misconduct and lists nine illustrative categories the definition must include. The statutory language is intentionally specific — naming acts like falsifying evidence, intimidation, excessive force, and organized on-duty misconduct by ‘law enforcement gangs’ — but leaves the commission room to detail standards, thresholds, and evidentiary rules in regulation.
Investigative authority, file review, and inter-branch referrals
This subsection makes agencies responsible for completing misconduct probes while giving POST’s division authority to review agency files, demand duplications, and conduct its own investigations using statutory powers under Article 2 of Gov. Code §11180. The board may request division review by majority vote, the commission may direct investigations, and the division may act on its own — creating multiple referral paths and a formal role for POST to second-guess or augment local inquiries.
Timing, tolling, and collateral estoppel
POST must finish division investigations within three years of receiving an agency’s completed report; that limit is tolled during appeals and criminal proceedings, and it doesn’t start if the agency never reported the conduct. The provision also clarifies the interplay with prior agency actions and appeals by referencing collateral estoppel doctrine to determine preclusive effect — giving POST flexibility to revisit matters while acknowledging preexisting legal limits on relitigating specific factual findings.
Temporary suspension, records retention, voluntary surrender, and retroactivity
The executive director may order immediate temporary suspension of a certificate upon arrest, indictment, discharge for covered grounds, or separation during an investigation if suspension serves public safety. POST must retain investigation records for 30 years, with a narrow destruction exception when the subject is deceased and no action proceeded beyond intake. Officers may permanently surrender certifications, which POST treats the same as revocation and bars reactivation. Finally, POST’s authority to act on pre-2022 conduct is limited to a short list of serious categories or cases where an agency finalizes its probe after Jan 1, 2022.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Justice across all five countries.
Explore Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Victims and community oversight advocates — they gain a central administrative pathway at POST to pursue decertification even when local agency discipline is incomplete or delayed, increasing the chances of formal accountability.
- Hiring agencies and background-screening employers — clearer statutory categories and centralized records make it easier to assess candidate risk and justify hiring decisions based on POST actions or records.
- POST and its investigative division — the bill grants explicit statutory tools (access to confidential records, Article 2 powers, and a clear definition framework) that strengthen its capacity to investigate and reach decertification outcomes.
Who Bears the Cost
- Local law enforcement agencies — they retain primary investigative responsibility but face a higher likelihood of second-party review, increased documentation demands, and potential duplication of effort when the division opens parallel inquiries.
- Individual peace officers — expanded grounds for decertification, temporary suspension authority, and the inability to reactivate a voluntarily surrendered certificate raise employment and licensing risk.
- Police unions and defense counsel — more administrative exposure and broader access to sensitive records will likely increase legal costs, grievance activity, and litigation over investigative scope and due process protections.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is accountability versus procedural fairness: the bill strengthens centralized oversight and investigative reach to remove officers who betray public trust, but those same powers — broad access to confidential records, temporary suspensions on arrest, and retroactive authority for certain offenses — increase administrative exposure and raise due-process, privacy, and resource-allocation problems that POST, agencies, and the courts will have to adjudicate in practice.
The bill mixes a prescriptive statutory list of misconduct with delegation to POST to define and apply the terms; that combination raises implementation knots. The statute enumerates conduct categories but leaves critical elements — burden of proof, evidentiary standards, and the procedures for evaluating ‘demonstrating bias’ or membership in a ‘law enforcement gang’ — to regulation and case-by-case practice.
Agencies and defense counsel will press on those gaps, which could yield inconsistent application across jurisdictions until POST issues detailed regulations and precedent accumulates.
Granting the division authority to inspect and duplicate confidential criminal justice records for decertification purposes solves an evidentiary problem but creates privacy and operational risks. Agencies must reconcile state confidentiality obligations and investigative secrecy with POST’s demand for full access; in practice that will require new data-sharing protocols, redaction practices, and likely litigation over scope.
The three-year investigation clock provides useful certainty but could also incentivize hasty or incomplete agency reporting and create tactical tolled pauses while criminal or administrative appeals run their course — prolonging finality for both officers and victims.
Retroactivity rules attempt to balance fairness with accountability by limiting POST’s reach into pre-2022 conduct, but the carve-outs are significant (dishonesty, sexual assault, deadly force causing serious injury/death, or post-2022 agency final determinations). That design reduces the risk of retroactive punishment for older, lower-grade misconduct while preserving POST’s power over the gravest offenses — a compromise that will generate disputes about classification and timing when older incidents surface in the modern regulatory regime.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.