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New Hampshire
NH Supreme Court Keeps One Cop on the Laurie List While Letting Another Off
The most recent Laurie List of dishonest cops can be seen here: https://indepthnh.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/November-5-2024-EES-List.pdf
By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
One police officer accused of lying is getting removed from the state’s Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, while another accused of lying will remain on the list.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court issued case orders on Tuesday on two separate Laurie List appeals, and while the cases are similar, the different results highlight the fact the court is still defining how Laurie List functions since it became a public document in 2021.
The Laurie List, or EES, is a list maintained by the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office of police officers with known credibility issues that need to be disclosed to defense attorneys. After the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism, publisher of InDepthNH.org, sued the state to make the list public, New Hampshire’s courts have been adapting to the new legal landscape.
Neither officer is named in the lawsuits decided Tuesday, but both share basic facts. Both officers were put on the EES after being accused of lying in incidents that took place more than a decade ago, and both officers had lower court judges rule the triggering incidents did not need to be disclosed during trials when considered as part of possible evidence.
But the key facts the Supreme Court seemed to base the decisions on is the weight of the evidence against the officers.
The first John Doe was accused of lying during an internal investigation in 2013, but the Supreme Court justices found his reported lie came down to a possible misunderstanding of an unclear question.
In 2013, the officer was told by a relative of his police chief that a complaint had been submitted over some incident. The same day, the officer was given a letter that an internal investigation was underway into the complaint, and he later spoke with the investigator. During that interview, the officer was asked how he learned about the investigation.
“[T]he plaintiff ‘verbally stumbled with a response’ and gestured to the department’s mail slots. He then said ‘from your . . . letter advising of the complaint,’” court records state.
The officer was never disciplined over the complaint, but instead the investigator determined that he lied about first hearing about the investigation from the letter and not from the chief’s relative. However, the officer claimed he learned about the complaint before he got the letter informing him about the investigation, and therefore he did not lie.
It was over this alleged lie that the officer was placed on the EES, and not over any complaint or other misconduct. The Supreme Court ruled that the potential confusion over the interviewer’s question creates enough doubt about whether or not the officer lied at all.
“The plaintiff claims that, although he told the investigating officer that he had spoken with another officer regarding the complaint, ‘he was honest in answering that he only became aware of the investigation when he was formally apprised of it in writing,’” the Supreme Court ruled. “We agree with the plaintiff that it is unclear whether the investigating officer asked him when he first learned of the complaint or when he first learned of the investigation.”
The case against a second John Doe, a New Hampshire State Trooper, is less ambiguous, according to the court. More than 14 years ago, the Trooper failed to appear at an Administrative License Suspension hearing. When he requested a rescheduled hearing, the trooper claimed he never got the first notification that was sent to his email account, and actually testified he never got the email during the rescheduled hearing.
Unfortunately for the trooper, a follow-up internal investigation found that not only did he get the original email notification, he reportedly deleted that email after he missed the first hearing. The trooper was disciplined and he appealed to the Personnel Appeals Board, which also found he lied during its hearing.
Even though he went on to have an exemplary career and the incident was more than a decade old, the lies about the email are enough to keep him on the EES, the Supreme Court ruled.
“In light of these undisputed facts, we conclude that while the misconduct occurred over ten years ago and, according to the trial court, the plaintiff ‘apparently had an exemplary career as a trooper’ since then, the misconduct is nevertheless potentially exculpatory impeachment evidence ‘that is reasonably capable of being material to guilt or to punishment,’” the justices wrote.
The fact that a lower court judge deemed the trooper’s email lies did not need to be disclosed during other proceedings does not mean the incident can’t be disclosed at some point, the Supreme Court ruled. Whether an EES issue is disclosed to a defendant in a criminal case depends on the facts of the criminal case and does not reflect an opinion about the EES status.
“That the circuit court concluded that disclosure of that information to the criminal defendants in two separate criminal proceedings was not required does not necessarily mean that the court concluded that the information was not ‘potentially exculpatory,’ and that plaintiff’s name should be removed from the EES,” the Supreme Court ruled.
New Hampshire
Satanist holiday display near New Hampshire Nativity scene destroyed after apparent vandalism
Local News
Only the legs of the black mannequin remained upright, while the strewn head and torso were damaged. The entire display was removed Tuesday.
Since the Satanic Temple’s monument near Concord, New Hampshire’s Nativity scene was unveiled Saturday, it has been “completely destroyed,” a state representative said.
The Salem, Mass.-based Satanic Temple, or TST, received a permit to place their monument of Baphomet, a deity and occult symbol with yellow eyes, near the city’s Nativity scene by the Statehouse. The city said in a statement they approved the permit in part “to avoid litigation.”
TST representatives unveiled Baphomet on Saturday night, and police believe it was vandalized some time between early Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. In pictures provided to Boston.com, only the legs of the black mannequin remained upright, while the strewn head and torso were damaged.
A spokesperson for Concord police confirmed that they responded to the scene Monday and could be investigating the incident as a hate crime.
State Rep. Ellen Read, a Democrat from Newmarket, initially asked TST to join the scene to represent “our pluralistic society.” She isn’t officially involved with them or the design of the Baphomet monument, but has signed up as a member online.
“I’ve just been a long time supporter of TST in terms of their beliefs and the work that they do,” Read said. “I’m local, so I helped with the permitting process, and I was there for the unveiling.”
Read said the monument had already been toppled once right after the unveiling ceremony on Saturday. Within 48 hours, the tablet listing the TST’s seven fundamental tenets had also been cracked with chunks of text missing.
Read said by Monday night, Baphomet had been taken apart and the tablet smashed. She said a Santa hat and a Christmas ornament had been left at the scene.
The display was cleaned up and removed Tuesday after the vandalism, Read said.
“There was nothing inherently offensive about the display. There were accusations that it meant to denigrate Christians, but there was nothing about it that was denigrating Christians,” Read said. “If you don’t want to allow it for all religions, then you don’t have to allow religious displays.”
Concord Mayor Byron Champlin previously said he would appoint a committee to evaluate the city’s options to regulate unattended displays for the future.
Champlin was critical of the display. He didn’t reply to a request for comment regarding the vandalism, but said at a Monday night meeting his preference was to oppose TST’s permit.
“I oppose the permit because I believe the request was made not in the interest of promoting religious equity but in order to drive an anti-religious political agenda and because I don’t respond well to legal extortion, threat of litigation,” Champlin said.
Read said it’s a First Amendment concern.
“They can pretend that they allow it for all religious displays, but it’s only really applicable if it’s Christianity,” Read said. “That’s kind of the point of calling that out and making sure that we’re standing up for First Amendment principles.”
TST did not return multiple requests for comment.
New Hampshire
Ex-trooper who texted arrestees from his personal phone has credibility issue, top N.H. court rules – The Boston Globe
A former New Hampshire State Police trooper who got caught using his personal cellphone to exchange text messages with people who had been arrested should have his name included on the state’s list of law enforcement officers with known credibility issues, the New Hampshire Supreme Court said in an order Tuesday.
The trooper, who is identified only as John Doe, had arrested a woman then contacted her later that night so she could retrieve a purse she had left in the back of his cruiser, according to court records.
When confronted by his supervisor in June 2018, the trooper said he had never done that before, but the supervisor later learned the trooper had a lengthy text exchange with a different arrestee in May 2018, according to the records.
An internal investigation concluded the trooper had been untruthful. He was fired, and his name was added to the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, formerly known as the Laurie List, which prosecutors use to keep track of officers whose employment files contain information that may need to be disclosed to criminal defendants.
The trooper filed a lawsuit in 2021 arguing that his name should be removed from the list because the records at issue in this case didn’t constitute “potentially exculpatory” evidence. But the trial court dismissed his claims, ruling that he had lied during the course of an official investigation and should be on the list.
The trial court denied the trooper’s motion for reconsideration in 2022, and the Supreme Court’s 4-0 order on Tuesday affirmed that denial.
The trooper claimed he had forgotten about the May 2018 text messages due to a disability, so he wasn’t actually lying when he told his supervisor in June 2018 that he hadn’t texted others previously. And he claimed he had falsely admitted to being untruthful because his military training taught him to accept responsibility when confronted by superiors.
But the justices ruled this is the sort of situation that belongs on the Exculpatory Evidence Schedule, even if the trooper’s false testimony was unintentional.
“Regardless of the justifications offered by the plaintiff, his conduct warrants inclusion on the EES because it reflects on his ‘general credibility,’” they ruled, noting that a criminal defendant could feasibly use this incident in a future case to question his trustworthiness.
This ruling was the latest in a series from the New Hampshire Supreme Court as the justices grapple with a cresting wave of litigation over which types of conduct warrant placement on the list and which do not.
Since the court released decisions in September and October that help to clarify application of the relevant statutes, the justices have issued six additional orders in John Doe cases from across the state.
Most of the recent rulings, but not all, have gone in favor of the officers challenging their placements on the list. The justices ruled last week, for example, that a trooper who lied to a tribunal about an email should remain on the list.
That case and Tuesday’s ruling highlight the reason the EES exists: If an officer was previously caught providing false information in an official proceeding, then prosecutors may need to disclose that to criminal defendants. The list is a tool to help ensure that happens.
This story first appeared in Globe NH | Morning Report, our free newsletter focused on the news you need to know about New Hampshire, including great coverage from the Boston Globe and links to interesting articles from other places. If you’d like to receive it via e-mail Monday through Friday, you can sign up here.
Steven Porter can be reached at steven.porter@globe.com. Follow him @reporterporter.
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