Opinion ID: 463530
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Injury to Reputation

Text: 24 Perry has not sustained an injury to reputation cognizable under the due process clause. The FBI memorandum does not accuse Perry of an act of dishonesty that might be criminal. Perry's barroom talk is not of great moment. The FBI, for instance, did not label him as an embezzler or a thief. Nor is there anything in the memorandum to suggest any immorality whatsoever. Those types of accusations are examples cited in Board of Regents v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 573, 92 S.Ct. 2701, 2707, 33 L.Ed.2d 548 (1972) as implicating a liberty interest. The memorandum information about Perry approaches nothing involving moral turpitude. See Lawson v. Sheriff of Tippecanoe County, Ind., 725 F.2d 1136, 1138 (7th Cir.1984). 25 The memorandum states, for example, that in October 1974, a United States Attorney declined to prosecute Perry for impersonating a federal officer, but asked that Perry be interviewed and admonished. Perry argues that this admonishment stigmatizes him because it suggests to any knowledgeable reader that the United States Attorney believed the allegations in the report were true. That is not a reasonable inference, as it could also be speculated that the admonition was only precautionary and did not represent a determination that the allegations were true. In any event, whatever the United States Attorney may have believed is immaterial. The memorandum's description of the admonishment does not amount to a stigma. 26 Most of what was contained in the FBI memorandum, even without the names of the informants (although Perry's father was identified), was easily subject to verification by the receiving agencies since most of it directly involved other police agencies in the same general area. Likewise Perry knew where he had worked, why employment was terminated, and if and when and for what he had been stopped, questioned and admonished. Most was information he should have had little trouble refuting. In addition to being clearly designated that it was not to be construed as a recommendation nor a conclusion of the FBI, the information was presented in a straightforward manner without editorial comment. The memorandum also contained several direct denials by Perry made at the time of the various incidents. 27 The memorandum was not distributed to some agency not capable of evaluating or verifying that type of raw information. The memorandum specifically instructs that it is the property of the FBI and is merely being loaned to the requesting agency. It further directs that the memorandum and its contents are not to be distributed outside that particular agency. There was no general widespread publication of the memorandum even within the government. The memorandum's distribution was strictly limited to a few specified law enforcement agencies all within the executive branch of the federal government. We need not, therefore, consider at this time the consequences of any potential for wider distribution of this or similar memoranda. 28 It is difficult to determine from an examination of the maze of pleadings, amended complaints, exhibits, affidavits, and briefs just exactly what information in the memorandum Perry claimed from time to time was false. Before this litigation began Perry wrote the Director of the FBI and took up the memorandum incidents one at a time. In that letter, for instance, he asks that the paragraph about him impersonating an officer be deleted as the incident was not sufficient to warrant prosecution. He does not deny that in fact he did what the report said he did. Likewise he asks that the paragraph about having a deputy marshal's badge be deleted because no prosecution was commenced. Again he does not deny that in fact he flashed the badge of a federal officer. It was reported that he carried numerous weapons in the trunk of his car. He does not deny it, but says he sees no relevance to it. Another item reported him carrying a .44 magnum pistol and having a police radio. Perry says that should be expunged since he had not been convicted for it. He does not deny the truth of the information. He also asks generally for deletions of all references to impersonating officers since he was not convicted. He does not deny the impersonations. Perry also claims that some things never happened. 29 Even if Perry had originally and explicitly denied each and every item in the memorandum, however, there is a pattern of conduct which emerges which fully justified the FBI's dissemination of the memorandum to interested federal law enforcement agencies to serve as employment investigative leads, but leads which obviously required further verification. It was not the responsibility of the FBI to run out all these leads for the employment purposes of other agencies. The FBI was neither hiring Perry nor advising any other agency about hiring him. The FBI file was the result of an investigation of Perry for allegedly impersonating federal officers. The agencies could follow the leads or ignore them in their own discretion. The agencies could hire or not in their own discretion. The FBI never imposed a ban on hiring Perry. 30 Putting all Perry's impersonation and other conduct aside, the various police agency evaluations of Perry for which he had worked which stated, for instance, that Perry would not be rehired because of poor attitude, failure to obey orders, and misuse of his job for personal gain is classic employment information, not within any police or criminal record category. That information alone, easily verifiable, could justify employment rejection by a federal law enforcement agency. Perry, however, did not make known on his employment application those short-time jobs in law enforcement which may have had unsatisfactory conclusions. 31