Court Opinion

ID: 9473436
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:29:46.413501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:31.710565
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part:
I do not disagree with Parts I and II of the court’s opinion (except for the ordering of a remand), but I reject the conclusion in Part III that, in this case, substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that petitioner’s Alford plea-and-convietion show notoriously disgraceful conduct. For me, the critical factors here are that (a) the presiding official expressly held, after the Alford conviction, that the agency had not in fact proven that Crofoot actually committed the offense underlying his Alford plea but rather that his evidence that he *666did not commit the offense was credible, and (b) the full MSPB specifically upheld those determinations. That being so, I cannot see how the prior Alford plea-and-conviction could show notoriously disgraceful conduct. If the MSPB had not made the findings it did — either making no findings at all on the facts or accepting the Alford plea as conclusive1 —an Alford conviction might indicate notoriously disgraceful conduct. But the MSPB findings show that this Alford plea-and-conviction now stands simply for petitioner’s fears of wrongful conviction plus his unwillingness to go through another trial. That cannot amount to “notoriously disgraceful conduct.” If it be said that his fellow employees would not know of the MSPB findings and would therefore believe he had in fact committed the offense, the answer is that, on Cro-foot’s reinstatement, he and the Government Printing Office should publicize the MSPB findings. In entering his Alford plea petitioner had denied he had committed the offense, and accordingly he would be consistent in continuing to deny; the agency could routinely bow to the MSPB’s factual findings (as to the offense) which this court does not overturn.
In holding that the Alford plea-and-conviction is enough by itself to show notoriously disgraceful conduct, the court seems to me wholly to disregard the crucial presence in this case of the MSPB’s factual findings that Crofoot has not been shown to have committed the offense. Because of those findings I would reverse and direct his reinstatement because the only significant charge sustained by the MSPB — notoriously disgraceful conduct — has no substantial support.

. It must be remembered that here the full MSPB refused to apply the principles of former adjudication (collateral estoppel) to the Alford conviction, and today's majority does not overturn that ruling.