This taxpayer lawsuit, filed by the Central Valley Chapter of 7th Step Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to assisting ex-offenders with employment issues, concerns the constitionality of distributing arrest records to public employers and licensing entities. The lawsuit was filed against James R. Rasmussen, the Assistant Director of the Identification and Information Branch of the California Department of Justice, and Evelle Younger, the Attorney General of the State of California. The complaint was filed by residents of the City of Oakland proceeding under anonymous surnames, who feel that they had faced employment discrimination because of prior arrests, some of which did not even result in a conviction. The lawsuit also notes that "the rate of arrests or detentions not resulting in convictions for black persons and for poor persons exceeds the rate of such arrests or detentions for Caucasian persons and for persons with income above the offical government poverty threshold." A taxpayer objects to the expenditure of public funds as "illegal and unconstitional." The appellants argue that deletion of arrest information would impose "only a slight burden" would be imposed upon respondents.

In reviewing the case, the court establishes that "various dissemination policies of defendants violate plaintiffs' right to privacy under the California Constitution." Addressing the component of the case which is concerned with the $25 fee associated with an individual's review of their own arrest record, the court declares that a refusal to provide local agencies with fee waiver forms is lawful, lest a non-indigent person claim indigence. "Proof of indigence" is also required of the individual, which the court also upholds.