News Channel 10
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Rhode Island State Police want a change in the police officers’ Bill of Rights.
State police administrators say they are frustrated by their inabilty to fire an officer.
Trooper Eve Marani admitted driving drunk last year and assaulting an arresting officer. The state police fired Marani, but she appealed to a disciplinary panel created by the Police Officer’s Bill of Rights.
The three-member panel unanimously found her guilty of eight of the nine counts she faced. But her firing was reversed and the panel changed her punishment to a one-year suspension.
“It is embarrassing for us. It is embarrassing for the rank-and-file. The troopers in the state of Rhode Island hold themselves to a very high standard. The command staff holds them to a high standard,” Maj. Brendan Doherty said.
The state police want to make a change in the makeup of the three-member panel.
Currently, one officer is chosen by the accused officer, one by the administration, and the third is an officer agreed upon by both sides who is supposed to be neutral. The state police feel the third member would be more objective if it were a retired judge.
“I don’t know if a Superior Court judge knows enough about police work to say whether someone did or did not do the right thing on a particular occasion,” said Marani’s attorney, John Lynch Jr., said. “That’s why the system was set up the way it is.”
The state police plan to lobby state lawmakers to support the change.
The Bill of Rights is designed to protect police officers from persecution.