BREAKING NEWS:Administrative Error Leads to Hundreds of Police Officers Being Named as Accused Felons on Court Computers

Administrative Snafu Wrongly Names Cops as Criminal Defendants

by Norm Kent

The stated purpose in founding this blog was to do some legal perspective on the news, from a criminal defense attorney’s standpoint. But today this criminal defense attorney is standing up for anyone in this county that has ever been a cop or worn a badge. They have been royally screwed by an administrative process in the clerk’s office which may be an absolute nightmare to cure.

In a nutshell, the problem is this: whenever a law enforcement officer has missed a deposition and had a Rule to Show Cause issued against him, the Clerk of the Courts has opened a new public file naming the officer as a criminal defendant on a ‘Contempt of Court’ charge. Hundreds of police officers, if not thousands, are probably impacted for the past god-knows-how-many-years.

The only good news I can share immediately is that the problem has recently been brought to the attention of Chief Judge Victor Tobin, who is furious about the situation, and he has initiated steps to fix it. In fact, everyone who has been notified about the problem appears to be on the same page, working towards a resolution. Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Franklin Adderly has also vowed to insure the officers in his department are protected as well. But the problem is so extensive it may take months to pour through the system just to find out how many officers across the county are so affected.

Here are the facts about how this came to everyone’s attention. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department was conducting an investigation which revealed to them that a number of officers were coming up in the clerk’s computer with pending felony charges against them.

When the division inquired further, they discovered these charges were ‘contempt of court’ allegations and evolved after an officer had for one reason or another, failed to appear for a subpoenaed deposition. Many times, as lawyers know, the failure is due to routine rescheduling or inadvertent error. Many times, it is simply corrected by scheduling a new date. But in any of those instances, where a ‘Rule to Show Cause’ for failure to appear was issued by the defense counsel, the Clerk opened a new criminal file charging the officer with ‘Contempt of Court.’

The first thing that strikes me as more than a clerical error but a major mistake by the Clerk’s office is naming the officers who missed depositions as defendants in a criminal case. At the very most, the failure to appear for a deposition would lead to a sanction for indirect civil contempt. Thus, the case was never a ‘criminal’ one to begin with.

Not to make an example of anyone in particular, but if you were to examine Fort Lauderdale Detective William Harder’s name on the clerk’s system, you would discover two separate felony charges are posted against him. Each are for contempt of court, and both have been dismissed. One in fact is from 2006, but both are still immediately accessible as a public record to anyone anywhere. I can only guess how many other officers are similarly compromised.

Sgt. Riche of Fort Lauderdale was one who tried to lift his name. Hasn’t happened. He has run into the wall of bureaucracy. Welcome to the system. Step on down.

The Chief Judge has properly requested the Clerk take immediate and affirmative steps to resolve the problem. Judge Tobin has correctly concluded that the problem is widespread.

The cures which are being discussed necessitate the Chief Judge issuing a directive barring the opening of future criminal files against police officers, who at the very most would be facing indirect civil contempt for failing to show at a deposition.

Secondly, the Chief Judge needs to enter an order directing the Clerk of Courts to purge any and all such files now pending. This could be an exhaustive process, but hopefully the IT people at the clerk’s office have some management skills to segregate out the entire panoply of cases where persons are charged with contempt of court.

Another mechanism which could be employed to assist the officer so affected is to have the police legal unit from every agency file petitions to seal for every officer so charged. This would remove the charges from the public record, but given how long this has been going on, that process may be cumbersome and unmanageable. We would need to be assured that it was possible to retrieve the name of every officer so impacted.

In fact, when first advised of this debacle, a deputy clerk suggested that in each case it would require the officer filing a petition to seal the public record. That answer does not satisfy Judge Tobin, nor should it satisfy the public or the police. The clerk needs to expedite an alternative process to undo this mess.

I would almost encourage every police officer in the county who has ever missed a deposition anytime in the past 20 years to run their name on the system to see if they are listed, then go tell your union rep. On behalf of Fort Lauderdale, their legal advisor is already in the mix to get a resolution. The Sheriff does not even know about it yet. The situation is just unfolding. It is an outrage.

Chief Judge Tobin will not stand for this. Nor should any officer or their union reps. It seems to me that the onus is now upon the Clerk’s office to make this a major priority, cure their past errors, and insure going forward from here the process does not recur.

There is no intent in this column to disparage the Clerk's office or anyone working there for this particular situation. There is enough there to talk about not related to this. What was done, was done, and it was not a conspiratorial plan to harm anyone. It just needs to be corrected from this day forth. Still, that may be too slow for the policeman explaining to a mortgage loan officer that he really does not have a felony pending.

In the meantime, there is one thing I would advise every cop who gets a subpoena for a deposition. Think a second time before missing it. And if you have missed one, you better go online and see for yourself if you are joining the guy you arrested as a named felony defendant.

You can access the clerk's public records at http://www.browardclerk.org/