Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: JUNE 2016 21 We agree that the officer should be able to go forward with his lawsuit against his former bosses alleging retaliation. . . . even though said bosses apparently had no idea what they were talking about. Now if you’ll excuse me I’d like to continue reading this wonderful how-to book about refinishing cabinetry. I really, really hate this job. Former cop wins at SCOTUS in case described as odd Continued from page one What are the rights of a public employee who gets fired or demoted because the boss mistakenly believed he supported a certian politi- cian? The thing’s a mess. The case involved a New Jersey cop who alleged that his bosses demoted him after mistakenly assuming he was backing the wrong horse in a local mayoral race. Jeffrey Heffernan, the po- lice officer, says he believes his demotion from detective to patrol in 2005 was politi- cal payback by superiors in the Paterson PD because his superiors spotted him with a campaign sign of a candidate running against the current mayor. That mayor was supported by the police chief. “I was picking up a sign for my mother, and that’s all I was doing,” Heffernan has said, according to the Bergen Record. So before we get into the weeds and “legalese” here, what apparently happened was the bosses saw the cop pick up a campaign sign for a mayoral candidate challenging their guy and assumed the Heffernan was sleeping with the enemy instead of just picking a sign that his mother wanted to stick in the front lawn. Theeightjusticesallagreed that retaliating against a pub- lic employee for expressing his first amendment rights was illegal. The hard part is figuring out what the plaintiff’s rights are based on the fact that the bosses didn’t understand what the hell was going on. “There’s no constitutional right not to be fired for the wrong reason,” Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told Heffernan’s attorney Mark Frost. Scalia has since died, which is the explanation for the 6-2 vote. Based on that argument, demoting a guy for his poli- tics is just fine and dandy as long as the boss has most or all of his or her facts wrong. Heffernan initially won a $105,000 jury verdict against the city. A judge tossed that verdict and recused himself due to a conflict of interest. The next judge tossed the case entirely and a federal appeals court affirmed that decision. Heffernan retired from the force in 2011 and decided to try and get his suit to the Supreme Court to keep his case alive – a monumental task accomplished by his legal team. Arguing for the city, law- yer Thomas Goldstein said the government’s motive didn’t matter. Goldstein argued that the government can’t violate First Amendment rights unless a person is actually exercising those rights. Since Heffernan wasn’t actually supporting the guy whose campaign sign he grabbed for his mom, the city argued that it can’t be sued because it had the facts so screwed up. Anyway, thanks to a 6-2 ruling, Heffernan can keep fighting. The decision al- lows Heffernan’s suit to go forward. This is one of those cases where you get more confused the more you look into it.