The highest court in New York upheld a ruling which struck down virtually all of the Rochester Police Accountability Board's powers.
That decision was handed down Friday by the Fourth Division of the New York Court of Appeals and the panel of judges agreed entirely with the decision by Supreme Court Justice Joseph Waldorf in April of last year. That case was brought by the Rochester Police Locust Club and contended that the PAB was violating civil service law by continuing to perform investigations into alleged police misconduct.
The decision barred the agency from investigating police misconduct, either independently or based on civilian complaints, and establishing a “disciplinary matrix” for guiding how Rochester police are disciplined. It also blocked the PAB from access to police databases, personnel files, or body-worn camera footage.
Effectively, the ruling allows the PAB to do two things: exist, and review and make recommendations around department policy.
The decision Friday said the PAB’s powers were a violation of the collective bargaining agreement between the city and the police union.
“The CBA sets forth, among other things, the manner in which interviews are to be conducted, by whom and when the interviews may take place, what prior written notice an officer is entitled to receive, the officer’s right to representation at such interviews, and their attorneys’ right to ask questions, as well as guidelines for command discipline and proposed penalties,” the decision reads.
To the extent that the law which established the PAB “attempted to usurp or alter those disciplinary procedures by granting the PAB authority to issue subpoenas, compel officer testimony, and create a new disciplinary matrix, ‘it ran afoul of the disciplinary procedures imposed by Civil Service Law,’” the decision continues.
The PAB operates under the purview of the Rochester City Council and was established by an overwhelming referendum vote in 2019. The agency, since its inception, has been plagued by legal hurdles.
