No Minneapolis cops have been disciplined after 439 complaints

Of 439 cases involving Minneapolis police misconduct handled by a new office created last fall, not one so far has resulted in discipline of a police officer.

Police department officials say those numbers obscure gains made in responding to citizen complaints about police behavior, but skeptics say the few cases of actual discipline confirm that the new system is not working any better than the one it replaced.

“I believe there has been considerable progress,” said Medaria Arradondo, commander of police internal affairs, who reviews complaints along with Michael Browne, director of the new conduct review office.

“The criticism was that it would not improve process and lead to less discipline,” said Teresa Nelson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. “The numbers show that those criticisms were accurate.”

The question of how Minneapolis police disciplines its own is facing fresh scrutiny after several recent incidents involving Minneapolis police officers. Two of the incidents involved off-duty officers accused of fighting with black men and using racial slurs in Green Bay, Wis., and Apple Valley, and led Police Chief Janeé Harteau to convene a citizens advisory group this summer.

In addition, the city of Minneapolis made $14 million in payouts for alleged police misconduct between 2006 and 2012, but the Minneapolis Police Department rarely concluded that the officers involved in those cases did anything wrong, according to a Star Tribune analysis.

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No Minneapolis cops have been disciplined after 439 complaints

Lawsuit: TN Attorneys Claim TN Ethics Board Acted Unethically

A bombshell of a lawsuit goes in front of a Nashville judge Thursday as a pair of Nashville lawyers are suing their own ethics board for what they call ethical violations and a cover-up. That means they are suing the very people who punish lawyers for bad ethics. WSMV Channel 4

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Attorneys Claim TN Ethics Board Acted Unethically

Accused Georgia Probate Judge, Shirley Wise, Still on Bench

Shirley Wise continues to serve as Camden County’s associate probate judge despite being accused of nine ethical violations by the state’s judicial watchdog group.

Probate Judge Martin Gillette said this week he has no intention of suspending Wise until the Judicial Qualifications Commission’s (JQC) investigation is complete. The JQC accused Wise on Oct. 19 of multiple ethics charges, including receiving kickbacks, ordering a county employee to forge Gillette’s signature, pre-signing marriage licenses and refusing to perform weddings she is sworn to officiate, instead referring the parties to local private wedding companies.

“We don’t send people to prison unless they are convicted of something,” Gillette said. “This is the same theory.”

Gillette, who will retire as probate judge in January and is slated to be replaced by Wise, declined to comment when asked about the possibility that illegal activity could be occurring in his office.

Gillette also said he does not believe the charges against Wise are true.

“This is all a bunch of crap as far as I’m concerned,” he said, noting his knowledge of the situation is limited. “You don’t treat people that way unless they are found guilty of something, would be my policy.”

No judge has ever successfully defended themselves against JQC charges, according to records found on the commission’s website, http://www.gajqc.com. Gillette also declined to comment on whether that fact changed how he perceives the situation.”

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Accused Probate Judge Still on Bench

Osceola Court Clerk faces Ethics Commission discipline

KISSIMMEE – The Florida Commission on Ethics announced Wednesday that it has found probable cause to show that Osceola County Clerk of Court Malcom Thompson misused his position to intimidate court clerk employees.

Thompson now faces a public hearing and up to a $10,000 fine if he does not seek a settlement over “using his position to intimidate Osceola County Clerk of the Court employees in order to enhance his personal and political power,” according to the finding signed Wednesday morning.

The investigation reviewed the same allegations that led to Thompson’s removal from office in January. He was later acquitted in back-to-back criminal trials on charges of battery and assault. But the ethics panel looked at possible corruption rather than workplace-violence allegations.

Thompson was not in the courthouse Wednesday but his attorney, Mark Herron of Tallahassee, challenged the commission’s finding.

“We’re actually looking forward to a hearing in front of an administrative law judge,” Herron said in a telephone interview. “We’re going to vigorously defend this…I don’t think there is any violation of the code of ethics at all.”

The ethics complaint was filed by clerk’s Human Resources Director Kim Zander, who first alerted the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office in January about allegations that Thompson hit an employee and threatened her as well for reporting the incident, records show.

Removed from office by Gov. Rick Scott in late January, Thompson was reinstated in May after his acquittal of battery in the first trial and the second trial ended in a judicial dismissal of the assault charge.

The new findings stated Thompson tried to convince Zander and other employees not to report the Dec. 29 incident when he was accused of striking executive secretary Latifa Ramdani during an argument.

It also accused him of insinuating that they “could lose their jobs if a new Clerk was elected” in the then-upcoming primary election, which Thompson lost last month.

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Osceola Court Clerk faces Ethics Commission discipline