Source: https://www.policelawblog.com/blog/2010/07/index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 20:42:27+00:00

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Senate Bill 1132, the Law Enforcement Officers' Safety Act Improvements Act of 2010 (LEOSA 2010) passed the United States Senate by unanimous consent in Mid-May of this year. The legislation has strong bi-partisan support. Many of the changes in the legislation, if it becomes law, would improve certain provisions of the Law Enforcement Officers' Safety Act (LEOSA) / HR 218, especially with respect to retired law enforcement officers.
The legislation would also make clear that law enforcement officers employed by the Amtrak and Federal Reserve Police Departments, and those employed by the Executive Branch of the federal government who are classified in OPM Series, GS-0083, would automatically meet the definition of "qualified law enforcement officer" under the current version of LEOSA. The legislation would also lower the aggregate years of service needed in order to meet the definition of "qualified retired law enforcement officer" from the current fifteen (15) years to ten (10) years and the legislation would also remove some confusing language related to this same definition. S.1132 having passed the Senate, is currently in the House of Representatives.
amends the federal criminal code to include a law enforcement officer of the Amtrak Police Department and the Federal Reserve or a law enforcement or police officer of the executive branch as a qualified law enforcement officer eligible to carry concealed firearms. Expands the definition of "firearm" to include ammunition not expressly prohibited by federal law or subject to the provisions of the National Firearms Act.
Revises the definition of "qualified retired law enforcement officer" to: (1) include officers separated (currently, retired) in good standing from service with a public agency as a law enforcement officer; and (2) reduce the years-of-service requirement for such officers from 15 to 10 years. Revises: (1) requirements for firearms certification for such separated officers to allow firearms training in accordance with the standards of the officer's former agency, the state in which such officer resides, or if such state has not established training standards, standards established by a law enforcement agency within the state or those used by a certified firearms instructor; and (2) mental health requirements for such officers.
CRS Report on LEOSA 2010.
In a new case issued by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Ellwood v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, No. 44 WAP 2008 (Pa. 2010), decided July 21, 2010, that court upheld the negotiability of the use of smokeless tobacco products by police officers. The court considered the issue of whether a municipal employer was required to bargain with a police union over a ban on the use of tobacco products in the workplace, in the Department’s vehicles and around other equipment.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the municipality had a duty to bargain over a ban of the use of these tobacco products with the police union. The facts in the appeal were as follows. The Ellwood City Police union represented police officers employed by the Ellwood City Borough. Prior to June 19, 2006, the Borough had permitted its law enforcement officers the ability to smoke and use tobacco products in its buildings, vehicles, and equipment. Subsequently, on June 19, 2006 the Town Council passed a resolution which prohibited the use of all tobacco products on or in municipally-owned buildings, vehicles, and equipment.
The next day, the Mayor of Ellwood issued a memorandum to all city employees, including all police officers, ordering them to cease any such use of tobacco products. Prior to issuing the memorandum, the municipality had not bargained over the ban with the police union. The union then had filed an unfair labor practice, which was upheld. Subsequently, a lower court had reversed the labor board’s finding of an unfair labor practice and the union appealed the adverse ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
(a) May a municipality, pursuant to its general police powers, enact an ordinance barring the use of tobacco products in publicly owned buildings, including employee workplaces inaccessible to the public at large, without negotiating with the exclusive representative of its employees?
(b) Must a municipal employer bargain with the police labor organization over the ban on use of tobacco products in the workplace and in the employer’s vehicles and equipment?
transit and equipment impermissibly denied Borough police officers their statutorily guaranteed collective bargaining rights to negotiate over working conditions.
The case has a number of implications for other police officers and their unions across the United States and may make other types of policies easier to contest if not bargained over prior to enacting such changes.
From time to time, it is important to keep track of the cases which impact key rulings for law enforcement officers. Keeping track of these important cases are critical when lawyers (like myself) need to represent police officers and officials in criminal/administrative proceedings. Few cases are as important as Garrity. A recent search of all existing cases impacting Garrity revealed the following as the most recent affirmation of the Garrity doctrine as it impacts law enforcement officers and officials.
The case I am referring to, U.S. v. Slough, 677 F. Supp.2d 112 (D.D.C. 2009) was an end of the year ruling, issued by Judge Ricardo Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on December 31, 2009. In the case, the U.S. District Court took the unusual step of dismissing high profile criminal manslaughter prosecutions against private security services contractors operating in Iraq. The court took this significant action on the basis that the investigators in the case had violated the rules in Garrity in that the defendants’ statements were improperly compelled and then used against them later.
violations arising out of a shooting that occurred in Baghdad, Iraq on September 16, 2007. They contend that in the course of this prosecution, the government violated their constitutional rights by utilizing statements they made to Department of State investigators, which were compelled under a threat of job loss. The government has acknowledged that many of these statements qualify as compelled statements under Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493, 87 S.Ct. 616, 17 L.Ed.2d 562 (1967), which held that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination bars the government from using statements compelled under a threat of job loss in a subsequent criminal prosecution. The Fifth Amendment automatically confers use and derivative use immunity on statements compelled under Garrity; this means that in seeking an indictment from a grand jury or a conviction at trial, the government is prohibited from using such compelled statements or any evidence obtained as a result of those statements.
The government has also acknowledged that its investigators, prosecutors and key witnesses were ex-posed to (and, indeed, aggressively sought out) many of the statements given by the defendants to State Department investigators. Under the binding precedent of the Supreme Court in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) and this Circuit in United States v. North, 910 F.2d 843 (D.C.Cir.1990), the burden fell to the government to prove that it made no use whatsoever of these immunized statements or that any such use was harmless beyond any reasonable doubt. Beginning on October 14, 2009, this court convened a Kastigar hearing to explore whether the government had made any use of compelled statements during its prosecution of the defendants. During this hearing, which spanned three weeks, the parties presented testimony from twenty-five witnesses, including the government's entire prosecution team, the lead FBI agents in charge of the investigation and all five defendants. The parties offered hundreds of exhibits into evidence and submitted voluminous pre- and post-hearing memoranda.
From this extensive presentation of evidence and argument, the following conclusions ineluctably emerge. In their zeal to bring charges against the de-fendants in this case, the prosecutors and investigators aggressively sought out statements the defendants had been compelled to make to government investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting and in the subsequent investigation. In so doing, the government's trial team repeatedly disregarded the warnings of experienced, senior prosecutors, assigned to the case specifically to advise the trial team on Garrity and Kastigar issues, that this course of action threatened the viability of the prosecution. The government used the defendants' compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads and, ultimately, to obtain the indictment in this case. The government's key witnesses immersed themselves in the defendants' compelled statements, and the evidence adduced at the Kastigar hearing plainly demonstrated that these compelled statements shaped portions of the witnesses' testimony to the indicting grand jury.
The court went on to dismiss the indictment against all of the private security contractors involved in the case. I believe that the Slough case, and the attached 90-page legal opinion strongly supports and adds to the protections that law enforcement officers need today. In today’s day and age of quick judgments based upon speculation, but not facts, coupled with increasing media scrutiny for senior level police officials, this case goes a long way towards mandating a cautious and reasonable approach to asking law enforcement officers questions during high profile investigations. The Slough case can be read, in full, by clicking here Download US v Slough.
In Johnson v. New York State Dept. of Correctional Services, 2010 WL 1752550, *1+ (N.D.N.Y. Apr 30, 2010) (NO. 809-CV-965 DNH/RFT), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York heard and ruled in a case where retired corrections officers had brought a civil action against the New York State Department of Corrections seeking relief from the court under the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act (LEOSA) permitting retired police officers to carry concealed weapons.
The retired correctional officers in the Johnson case had sought to obtain necessary credentials under LEOSA from their former agency in order to comply with the law. They had prepared a number of written requests to this effect with their former agency. In response to the retired officers’ written requests, the New York Department of Corrections had denied the officers the credentials they had sought. The retired officers then brought suit against the agency.
In their lawsuit, the retired officers sought a number of findings from the U.S. District Court in their lawsuit. Most important to the correctional officers, however, was a request that the court order the Department of Corrections to provide the retired officers with the credentials that were necessary in order to comply with 18 U.S.C. § 926C(a) of LEOSA. Section 926C(a) of LEOSA requires retired law enforcement officers to photo identification in accord with 18 U.S.C. § 926C (d) from the agency from which they retired.
The U.S. District Court held that LEOSA established a federal right for retired law enforcement officers to carry concealed firearms across state lines, but also ruled that the lawsuit in this case had to be dismissed because the relief sought was unconstitutional. In particular, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York found that because Congress could not force state agencies to take action in issuing retired police officers credentials under LEOSA, that their case must be dismissed.
In sum, while this one U.S. District Court appeared to rule contrary to retired officers in the present case, it may not be an indication of what another U.S. District Court might hold. In addition, the Johnson case also would not apply on the constitutional issues involved, to federal law enforcement officers. An appeal in the case was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and is presently pending.
A Washington, D.C. jury has awarded $900,000 to five African-American law enforcement officers in the District of Columbia after deciding they were punished for their complaints of racial discrimination, according to WTOP News and the Washington Examiner. The officers, part of an investigative unit for vice crimes, complained twice about alleged discrimination in the unit in mid-2006, in an anonymous letter to department officials, then in an official complaint. The allegations in the complaint included the contention that the officers had been labeled as troublemakers by the unit’s commanding officer.
I have written on many areas of the Law Enforcement Officers' Safety Act of 2004 (LEOSA) (also popularly referred to as HR 218, the designation of the House Bill that first passed this measure) but often times it is helpful to look back at the actual language of what was passed in evaluating law enforcement professional issues that arise.
To amend title 18, United States Code, to exempt qualified current and former law enforcement officers from State laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed handguns.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act of 2004’’.
FROM STATE LAWS PROHIBITING THE CARRYING OF CONCEALED FIREARMS.
the individual is employed as a law enforcement officer.
‘‘926B. Carrying of concealed firearms by qualified law enforcement officers.’’.
commerce, subject to subsection (b).
to carry a firearm of the same type as the concealed firearm.
‘‘926C. Carrying of concealed firearms by qualified retired law enforcement officers.’’.
In a State of New York case, People v. Booth, 2008 W.L. 2247068 (N.Y.Co.Ct May 29, 2008) the state court held, in the context of a criminal prosectuion, that Coast Guard boarding officers are qualified LEOs within the meaning of the Law Enforcement Safety Officers Act of 2004, aka LEOSA/H.R. 218. While the decision is from two years ago, the discussion of the application of LEOSA to law enforcement officers is important.
The Coast Guard boarding officer was pulled over in the City of Newburgh, NY on a traffic stop. During the stop, the patrol officer uncovered a firearm (loaded Glock 23 handgun) in the vehicle. The patrol officer arrested the Coast Guard boarding officer because he did not have a license to carry a firearm.
The Booth court found that the Coast Guard boarding officer qualified under LEOSA and was exempt from prosecution, even though he did not have a handgun license (a violation of USCG rules). The court held that "When distilled to the salient facts, the evidence presented . . . showed that the defense was a qualified law enforcement officers who possessed photographic identification issued by the Coast Guard. Accordingly, he is exempt from prosecution."

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