Actually, it was Clark's lawyers who did most of the talking. But I can't blame Clark for dummying up for much of the 11:30 a.m. news conference. If I had a kick-booty legal team of A. Dwight Pettit, Neal Janey and Stuart Simms as my mouthpieces, I'd dummy up, too.
Pettit is a superb defense attorney; Simms is the former state's attorney for Baltimore; Janey used to be Baltimore's city solicitor. These men know what state law says and what it doesn't say, especially on the matter of when and why Baltimore's police commissioner can be fired.
"What was violated," Pettit said yesterday, "was his rights of due process and for an adversarial proceeding." Also violated, Pettit said, were Clark's rights to counsel, to respond to allegations against him and for a public airing of exactly what he did wrong.
Janey was even more specific. He compared what didn't happen in Clark's firing to what did happen when former Baltimore school Superintendent Roland Patterson was fired in the 1970s. According to Janey, Clark was entitled to:
Notification of the charges against him.
Specification of the charges against him.
An opportunity to have the charges investigated.
A public hearing similar to a trial.
City officials have contended - when O'Malley was mayor and now - that because Clark signed the contract voluntarily, he can't accept some provisions while rejecting others. O'Malley, now governor, has said he supports a law that would give Baltimore's mayor "the same hiring and removal authority that other county executives have."
Here's a better idea: How about Baltimoreans requiring our city officials to draw up contracts that actually comply with state law? Is that so difficult? Isn't that why we elect these people?
The law as it now stands is a good one. (So is the law requiring that the state school board, not the governor, appoint the state school superintendent. O'Malley was opposed to that one, too, until he thought better of it.) I can see why a mayor of Baltimore might just want to give a police commissioner the boot without cause, but I also see that the law preventing it is designed to protect good police commissioners from bad mayors.
Good mayors can always think of ways to get rid of bad police commissioners without violating the law.
gregory.kane@baltsun.com
