Issaquah DUI Lawyer | Impeachment: Dig up some dirt on your Arresting Officer
If you have been charged with DUI — or any other crime — your Issaquah criminal lawyer should do some research to dig up any dirt on your arresting officer. This can be done through a public information request with the officer’s agency. You can get use of force reports, reports of reprimands and complaints about the officer, etc. Then, your DUI attorney can use that information to impeach the officer at trial, or to negotiate a better deal for you in order to avoid trial.
In special cases, you don’t even need to do an information request because the officers were kind enough to get featured in a highly published news article.
Five specific officers (Bryan Ensley, Daniel Mann, Gabriel Olson, Dennis Tardiff and Spike Unruh) featured in the article below are probably not going to be spending any time in trial any time soon. According to the article, they have been lying to their employer for years about false diplomas. And most jurors who hear about something like that are probably going to second-guess everything they say. To make matters worse (for the officers, not you), they actually had the nerve to file a lawsuit against their employer for defamation. So, not only are they liars, they are unlikeable and unsympathetic.
So, if your case involves one of these five troopers, make sure your Issaquah criminal lawyer knows that so she can use this story to fight your DUI.
Troopers, busted with suspect diplomas, sue state
Five troopers suspended without pay for 3-10 days claim they were defamed
By LEVI PULKKINEN
SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF
Five state troopers investigated and disciplined for using bogus
college diplomas to gain pay raises have sued the state, claiming they
were defamed.
Filing a lawsuit earlier this month in King County Superior Court, the
State Patrol troopers claim their reputations were stained in 2008
when the patrol released details of a probe into allegations that they
had obtained bunk college degrees to gain pay raises.
In the suit, the troopers — Bryan Ensley, Daniel Mann, Gabriel Olson,
Dennis Tardiff and Spike Unruh — each claim to hold degrees from
Internet-based colleges that award credit based on “life experience.”
Neither school is accredited by any body recognized by the federal
Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education
Accreditation, the two organizations on which the patrol now relies to
determine if a degree is valid.
The patrol launched an audit of personnel records in May 2008 after it
came to light that a Spokane diploma mill selling counterfeit degrees
and transcripts counted dozens of government workers among its
customers. None of the troopers involved in the suit was a client of
the diploma mill; each had, instead, obtained a degree online.
In 2008, nine troopers suspected of using degrees from unaccredited
colleges were placed on paid leave while the allegations were
investigated by the patrol. No charges were filed and, according to
the lawsuit, each of the five troopers who has now sued was briefly
suspended without pay.
Speaking Wednesday, State Patrol spokesman Bob Calkins defended the
department’s actions against the troopers.
“This matter was thoroughly investigated, carefully considered and we
think the discipline was appropriate,” Calkin said.
Troopers received a 4 percent pay increase for holding a bachelor’s
degree and an additional 2 percent raise for a master’s degree,
providing a financial incentive to participate in the programs.
According to the lawsuit, Mann had been receiving educational
incentive pay since 1999, when he obtained a bachelor’s degree from
the University of Berkley — an online institution unaffiliated with
the University of California at Berkeley.
The other four troopers involved in the suit received their degrees
from Almeda University — another online university that, for a fee,
also awards degrees based on an applicant’s life experience — and
began drawing additional pay in 2006, attorney Aaron D. Bigby told the
court.
Bigby, of the Seattle law firm Northcraft, Bigby & Biggs, argued in
the civil complaint that the State Patrol had no rules for judging
whether a university was properly accredited until after the
investigation was launched in 2008.
Bigby recounted a July 2008 e-mail purportedly sent by a State Patrol
captain investigating the troopers’ educational backgrounds. The
captain, Bigby told the court, noted that the State Patrol had “no
real standard in place regarding what type of accreditation” is
required.
Writing the court, Bigby said his clients were placed on paid
administrative leave for 10 months while the patrol conducted a
criminal investigation. No charges were filed and, after an initial
move by the patrol to fire the deputies, the troopers were suspended
for three to 10 days without pay.
Now, the troopers contend they were defamed by their employer in
statements to the media after the investigation was made public.
Writing the court, Bigby also claimed the patrol wrongly tied his
clients to the Spokane diploma mill, which was the subject of criminal
prosecution.
“Unlike the Spokane diploma mill, Almeda University and the University
of Berkley operators have not been convicted of counterfeiting for
their operations,” Bigby told the court. “By implying a link between
(the troopers) and the Spokane diploma mill, the (State Patrol) has
placed the plaintiffs in a false light.”
Bigby also faulted the patrol for releasing the names, personnel files
and photos of his clients to reporters following a public records
request.
Claiming his clients have suffered “severe emotional distress,” Bigby
asserted the troopers are owed payment for the harm done to their
reputations, their mental anguish and invasions of their privacy.
The State Patrol has not yet responded to the suit with the court.
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