State's high court hears case over trooper?s lost hat

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s highest court is being asked to decide: If a state trooper can’t be trusted to tell the truth about why he lost his hat, can he be trusted when he faces a heavier moral choice? Trooper Thomas Wetherington initially told his supervisor the hat blew off of his head and was probably crushed by a passing 18-wheel truck.

The hat was returned a few weeks later in good condition by one of the people Wetherington had pulled over that day. The two-year member of the force then said he realized his mistake but stuck to his explanation because he’d earlier been reprimanded for forgetting to wear his hat.

“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 describing their position. “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 Highway Patrol determined that the trooper violated its truthfulness policy, which says no patrol member “shall willfully report any inaccurate, false, improper or
misleading information.”

An administrative law judge and a majority on the state personnel commission upheld the firing, but that decision was reversed by two lower courts that ruled the patrol’s leaders lacked just cause.

Col. Randy Glover, then the state patrol’s commander, fired Wetherington after learning termination had been the fate of every trooper since at least 2002 proven to violate the truthfulness policy, state attorneys said.

Wetherington’s firing came at a time when several troopers had faced misconduct accusations, in particular those of a sexual nature. In 2010, then-Gov. Beverly Perdue said she would make every state trooper sign a code of conduct and those that break the rules would be fired.

But Wetherington’s attorneys said an agency memo outlined two dozen examples of the highway patrol’s handling of discipline, the trooper’s attorney wrote in a court filing.

“Some of those are episodes of extreme misconduct including but not limited to criminal conduct and serious untruthfulness that was condoned, and either not charged or punished by trivial discipline and not termination,” attorney Michael McGuinness wrote. “The patrol’s record is neither inspiring or at all indicative that truthfulness is paramount.”

The lower state Court of Appeals rejected arguments from state attorneys that if Wetherington remained a trooper, his policy violation 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 court opinion said.