(The Center Square) — Maine police unions are blasting a proposal to broaden the disciplinary authority of the state’s law enforcement certification board, arguing the new rules lack due process and will make it harder to attract and retain officers.
The Maine Criminal Justice Academy, which certifies the state’s police and correctional officers, is considering new regulations that would discipline officers for behavior such as harassing civilians, falsifying written or verbal communications in official reports, possessing a controlled substance and engaging in conduct while on duty that would “significantly diminish the public’s confidence” in law enforcement.
The new regulations, which have broad support from top law-enforcement officials, come three years after the state Legislature approved plans to expand the academy’s disciplinary powers and provide the public with more information about misconduct by police and corrections officers.
However, in recent comments to the agency, the Maine Association of Police and Maine State Law Enforcement Association expressed “alarm and concern” about the proposed rules. They said the changes “shock the conscience of the already established, clear statutes, regulations and processes that are already custom and practice and very much effective.”
“These expansive changes will not only have an irrecoverable effect on the administration of due process for the regulation of individual certificates, but have also an instant chilling effect in the recruitment, and most notably the retention of certified law enforcement officers,” they wrote. “These changes will chart a course that cannot be altered or stop the bleeding we are currently experiencing in our ranks in any tangible or timely way.”
Maine was one of several states that has sought to hold law-enforcement officers more accountable for misconduct in response to the 2020 death of George Floyd. The law updating the accountability standards was actually approved in response to a 2018 incident involving sexual harassment charges against a county sheriff and concerns police weren’t responding to civilian complaints.
Under the new rules, officers can be disciplined for harassing someone because of their race, color, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, physical or mental disability, religion, age, ancestry, national origin or familial status. This would include “unwelcome advances, comments, jokes and other verbal or physical conduct.” The board could also discipline an officer for lying on their application to be accredited by the agency.
Sheriffs, police chiefs or state police leaders would also be subject to discipline by the board if they fail to report a conviction or misconduct by an officer or don’t conduct an investigation into allegations of misconduct within 30 days, as required by the law.
But the police unions, which said they have consulted their legal advisors, said the changes are “cloaked in vagueness” and designed to give the board and a civilian complaint panel “unchecked power” to make decisions that could impact officers’ careers. They also argue that the proposed changes circumvent a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that determined the courts are the proper venue for determining an officer’s credibility.
“To have this undefined and surreptitious ‘shadow process’ creates fertile ground for due process to be trampled underfoot of powerful and external influences including political, local and public opinion,” the unions wrote.
