Court to rule on North Carolina state trooper who lost his hat – and then lost his job

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/19/north-carolina-state-trooper-fired-lost-hat

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Six years after a North Carolina state trooper broke down in tears in front of the superior who caught him in a lie about his lost hat, the state’s supreme court will decide whether the highway patrol was right to fire him for the fib.

In March 2009, trooper Thomas Wetherington lost his hat during a traffic stop and subsequently told his supervising sergeant that the wind had blown it off his head, and that he believed a passing tractor trailer had run it over.

Wetherington “was very upset”, according to court documents, and comforted by another trooper who told him “that everybody loses stuff and that if [Wetherington] did not know what happened to his hat, then he should just tell his sergeants that he didn’t know what happened to it”.

But “it was a little late for that”, Wetherington said, because he had already told his sergeant the story about the truck. A few weeks later, the truck driver’s aunt called to say her nephew had the hat, which was soon returned. Wetherington was called into his boss’s office, where he was asked whether he maintained the story about the wind and the truck. He said he did.

The sergeant then pulled the hat out of a cabinet and confronted Wetherington with it.

At that point, court documents say, Wetherington “broke down in tears and said he wasn’t sure what happened to his hat. He didn’t know if it was on the trunk lid of the truck, the boat, or behind the light bar, and blew off.”

Wetherington, who had been reprimanded before for forgetting to wear his hat, was swiftly fired for breaking the highway patrol policy on truthfulness. The policy states that no one “shall willfully report any inaccurate, false, improper or misleading information”.

An administrative judge and state panel upheld the dismissal, but an appeals court decided in 2013 that the “punishment did not fit the offense”, contrasting the case with those of officers accused of substance abuse and sexual offenses. The state appealed, however, bringing the case before the supreme court.

The sergeant then pulled the hat out of a cabinet and confronted Wetherington with it

State attorneys argued that if an officer of the law cannot be trusted to tell the truth about a missing hat, how can he or she be trusted with the great powers vested in a badge and a gun?

“Wetherington did not voluntarily correct his lie – even when the opportunity to confess and accept responsibility for losing the hat presented itself,” state attorneys said in court documents.

“The people have statutorily vested law enforcement officers with the power to invade their homes, restrain their freedom and even take their lives based solely on their judgment. In return, the public has a right to expect that officers authorized to exercise such extraordinary powers will be scrupulously honest in all their official duties.”

The lower state court of appeals rejected arguments that if Wetherington remained a trooper, his lie would have to be disclosed to defendants in cases where he may testify. The state offered no proof the disclosure would be required and a trooper is rarely the sole witness in a case, the appeals judges said.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.