The consultant, who will be appointed jointly by the plaintiffs and police department with a tie-breaking vote likely going to former state Attorney General Stephen H. Sachs, will have access to department data and the ability to act as a troubleshooter for officers with concerns, according to those familiar with the settlement. The consultant will evaluate disciplinary data and make biannual reports to Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III.
City Solicitor George A. Nilson said that the lawsuit revealed that the Police Department does not keep disciplinary data in a way that "is usable and retrievable," and the settlement requires the department to upgrade hardware and software to improve its recordkeeping.
In addition, the suit requires the department to send 25 minority or female officers to a leadership training program course at the University of Maryland, University College, for the next five years and mandates that the internal charging committee include minority representation reflective of the department's makeup.
Nilson said that continuing to fight the lawsuit would have cost $6 million in legal fees to hire outside counsel and specialists to retrieve data, plus $8 million to $10 million to reimburse the plaintiffs' attorney fees if the city had lost. The city spent at least $1.3 million in legal fees, according to a June 2008 Baltimore Sun article.
Mayor Sheila Dixon believes the disciplinary issues raised in the Hopson case have been addressed by the current police commissioner, Nilson said. "We are closing a book in a constructive way on a previous chapter," Nilson said.
Still, Monday's move to drop 38 more internal charges against police officers raises questions about whether problems persist in the disciplinary process.
A total of 50 cases have now been dropped because of "administrative" issues, not problems with the charges themselves, Guglielmi said. He did not disclose which officers were cleared or what they had been charged with.
In April, the department's prosecutor for internal disciplinary cases, JoAnn C. Woodson-Branche, was fired. Union officials and defense attorneys say she was signing documents required to be signed by the charging committee and backdating documents after the period to file charges had expired. Woodson-Branche has not responded to the allegations.
