Rural police department violated officer’s right to misconduct hearing, MD court rules

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The Maryland Appellate Court this month ordered a rural police department to provide a hearing to an officer who received two letters of reprimand.

The Brunswick Police Department deprived officer Christopher Handler of his right to a trial board hearing, the court ruled March 2. The Maryland Police Accountability Act, the court wrote, entitles officers to such hearings to adjudicate all misconduct complaints, not just those “involving” members of the public.

Handler was the subject of two misconduct complaints in August 2023, one for speeding and one relating to “an allegation of unprofessional conduct towards a supervisor.” While the speeding complaint came from a member of the public, the parties agreed the incident didn’t “involve” the person who made the complaint.

Handler requested a trial board hearing, and the department denied it. Handler then went to the Frederick County Circuit Court and filed a petition for writ of mandamus, a request that a court order a government agency to take a specific action.

The court agreed with him and ordered a hearing, but the city of Brunswick appealed, arguing that the law requires police departments to offer hearings to adjudicate only matters “involving” members of the public.

Senior Appellate Court Judge James Kenney III wrote that the law “clearly” requires a hearing “to adjudicate all matters for which a police officer is subject to discipline.”

“We do not find, and we decline to add, language limiting the requirements of (the law) only to matters involving a member of the public,” Kenney wrote. He was joined by Maryland Appellate Court Chief Judge E. Gregory Wells and Judge Andrea Leahy.

“Notably, appellants neither point to an ambiguity within the language of the statute itself, nor do they advance a reasonable alternative interpretation of that language.”

The Maryland Police Accountability Act of 2021, which was passed in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd and became law in July 2022, reformed police discipline in Maryland. It replaced the Law Enforcement Officers’ Bill of Rights, which protected officers and made it difficult for the public to hold them accountable for misconduct. Many states had statues similar to the LEOBR, and Maryland was the first state to repeal it.

The city of Brunswick was represented by Ian Bartman of Offit Kurman. Handler was represented by Devon Miller of the Law Offices of Patrick J. McAndrew.

Brunswick, a small town along the Potomac River, argued that a decision in the officer’s favor would “result in an outcome that interprets the (Maryland Police Accountability Act) as being even more pro-police officer rights than (the) LEOBR was.”

“That might be true,” Kenney wrote, “but it does not alter the fact that, when a statute is unambiguous, it is presumed that the General Assembly meant what it said.”

The city also claimed such a decision would cause “a significant expansion” of officers’ access to trial boards.

“We are not persuaded,” Kenney wrote. “Indeed, such an expansion would not necessarily be inconsistent with an intention to increase transparency in policing.”