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In past years, it was common practice for Milwaukee police officers facing department suspensions or other discipline to negotiate reduced penalties. Officers won these deals by agreeing to drop appeals before the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission. These plea bargain-style agreements, however, have dropped sharply as Police Chief Ed Flynn and city attorneys have worked to build stronger cases against officers.

The Commission is a panel of six that holds evidentiary hearings in the appeals of police officers and firefighters contesting disciplinary penalties. It has the authority to reduce these penalties, increase them or sustain them.

(photo by adrian palomo)

According to Michael Tobin, executive director of the commission, appeals are withdrawn “usually after a reduction in the length of the suspension as a result of negotiations” between the City Attorney’s office and the officer’s lawyer, who is often provided by the city police union. The reductions amount to plea bargains: The officer accepts a lesser penalty and agrees to withdraw the appeal.

Tobin, a former Milwaukee police officer and assistant city attorney, handled disciplinary appeals for the City Attorney’s office between approximately 2000 and 2005. “When I was doing it, I would look at it from the standpoint of doing the right thing and looking at the success probability of the case,” he says.

Leading up to hearings, the original case built by the police department or other investigators could weaken unexpectedly. “You might talk to a witness,” Tobin says, “and the witness might change their story.”

This is where negotiations might begin.

But such deal-making appears to be on the decline. Assistant City Attorney Patricia Fricker has been assigned to the cases for about a year and says she can’t recall ever making such a plea bargain-style agreement. “Usually either the officer withdraws the appeal,” and the department penalty stands, “or we go to a hearing,” she says.

Another assistant city attorney who has handled the cases for the City Attorney’s office, Donald Schriefer, says a reduction in such compromises could indicate the police department is building stronger cases before disciplining officers.

ed flynn

Tobin argues that’s what’s happening. In an email, he said such compromise agreements “have declined since Chief (Ed) Flynn was appointed … Since then, the city attorney works more closely with (the Milwaukee Police Department) at the charging phase to help ensure cases meet evidentiary standards for a potential hearing.”

Flynn succeeded former Chief Nannette Hegerty in January 2008.

Commission statistics show a big reduction in disciplinary appeals, dropping from 60 in 2006 and 2007 to just 17 in 2008 and 2009. A likely reason for the reduction is the city is building stronger cases against police.

Of the 60 appeals in 2006 and 2007, officers withdrew 19 of those before hearings were held. (Tobin says that usually happens when the officer has negotiated a reduced deal from the city attorney.) Another 12 cases ended prematurely when officers voluntarily resigned, retired or when the department dropped the discipline. Of the 29 cases that went to hearings, the Commission upheld penalties imposed by the police or fire departments in 22 and reduced them in seven.

Of 17 appeals in 2008 and 2009, officers withdrew eight of those prior to hearings. In the seven cases that went to hearings, department discipline was upheld in five, reduced in one and increased in another. The remaining two cases ended when officers resigned.

Out of 14 appeals filed in 2010, seven are still pending; seven were withdrawn by officers and in the one remaining case, a hearing was held and the department’s discipline was upheld.

The Journal Sentinel did a story on March 27 on police discipline where it reported the Commission “reduced some three dozen disciplinary actions against police officers and firefighters” between 2006 and 2010. But, according to Michael Tobin, executive director of the Commission, only 28 of those 36 actions were reduced by the Commission: The rest were reduced in agreements hashed out between city officials and the officers. (The newspaper later ran a clarification.)

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