oplease
You have hit on the main point. It's my computer in my house not the Village's.
By the way I have a lot more class then to forward those things like DeVoy did.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/5...

copperguy
I also have seen copies of the emails ( as has most of the Village). They are nothing I have not seen before although I would not forward them to my Mother.
One thing I have noticed in visiting with people since the release of the emails is most of the men say it was pretty stupid but oh well. Most of the women want him run out of Town on a rail.
That leads to the question will things ever go back to the way they were with DeVoy or will he be a lame duck?

Nuremberg in Darien...

one943: The parties, along with Mr. Herrick, will have worked out discovery rules that would address that. I am not privy to any of that.

As to the claim of finding "something new," I would be rather surprised if that were the case. What I would SUSPECT is that such a theory is being presented to explain why there have been several reschedulings of the hearing.

I have seen some, but not all, of the emails. Some of those I have seen were described as "porn" by Chief DeVoy's opponents. Nothing that I saw rises to the level of what a Court (let alone a civil hearing examiner) would find to be pornographic. It is human nature to broaden legal definitions in order to suit our desires. This happens often in policing, where a victim might embellish their claims against a suspect in order to cause more trouble for that suspect. A good case in point is the many claims of postings on these forums being "libel." In fact, most of them turn out not to be libelous but simply harsh or critical.

copperguy
I have heard from 2 people (only 1 I trust) that something else has been found on his computer in the last month. If this is true can it be brought out at the hearing?

The term "PORN" is subjective.

Copperguy, I couldn't disagree more about there being no porn in DeVoy's e-mails. Have you personally seen the materials/documents? I have.

All of the RELIABLE information has identified the "inappropriate material" as emails with jokes and humor. By all accounts, there's no pornography or anything such as that. Emails containing off-color "office humor" will not be terminable to Mr. Herrick. If there were porn, that would be a different matter. That's not the case.

I have no idea whats on the computer, but previous blogs and news stories have suggested inappropriate material. This could be a terminable offense.

SarahB1: That's actually down from the original 5 days that had been scheduled. And, the news media continues to refer to him as "fired," when in reality, he can not be "fired" until/unless the Hearing Examiner fires him. A Village Board does not have the statutory authority to fire a police officer. That authority rests solely with a hearing examiner or panel.

In this case, I do not believe the Hearing Examiner will terminate the Chief. None of the charges are criminal or a serious breach of the public trust. Normal disciplinary procedure is to first engage in verbal coaching. If that fails, the next step is a written reprimand. Further problems result in suspensions of increasing length, usually starting at one day, then three days, etc.. Only after multiple disciplinary measures have been tried without success will a hearing examiner resort to the ultimate, which is termination.

As best I can tell (as an outsider), Chief DeVoy has never had any sort of discipline. The previous Village Board has requested the Hearing Examiner to skip over all of those lesser disciplinary possibilities and go straight to termination. Given the Hearing Examiner's experience as counsel for Madison Police and Fire Commission, I don't think there's any way he will agree to that request. He will follow normally accepted guidelines. At most, I could see him imposing maybe a three or five day suspension, even if ALL the allegations are proven (which is not likely). It will end up costing the taxpayers another $20K - $50K, and the previous Village board will have ultimately failed.

In lieu of spending all of that money on a doomed venture, they should be negotiating for a period of suspension followed with reinstatement. This is, after all, what Mr. Herrick (the Hearing Examiner) will ultimately impose.