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Montgomery County v. Krieger7/1/1996
This is an appeal from an August 21, 1995 Order of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County reversing a decision of the Chief of the Montgomery County Police Department to punish administratively appellee Linda A. Krieger, a Montgomery County police officer. Although appellant Montgomery County (County) has presented us with three questions for review, we believe that the resolution of this appeal essentially boils down to two questions, which we restate as follows:
I. Was the administrative disciplinary action taken against appellee in violation of principles of double jeopardy?
II. Was the administrative disciplinary action taken against appellee in violation of Maryland's Law Enforcement Officers' Bill of Rights ?
Responding in the negative to these questions, we reverse the judgment of the circuit court.
FACTS
The facts are largely undisputed. On October 3, 1994, appellee fueled her police cruiser at the fuel site of the Seven Locks Maintenance Facility -- a county-owned facility. While she was pumping gasoline into the cruiser, appellee heard a radio dispatch for another motor unit to respond to an accident involving property damage. Appellee notified the dispatcher that she would assist that unit with the call and then continued to fuel the cruiser. Shortly thereafter, the radio dispatch was upgraded to a personal injury accident authorizing a "code 3 emergency" response. In appellee's words, the following then happened:
I then left the gas pumps abruptly at that point because I had to go red light and siren to the accident. At that point I must of heard a noise and looked in my rear view mirror and I saw the gas pump nozzle and hose fly up in the air and obviously then I stopped and went back and realized that I had left the pump action in my car before I took off.
As a result of pulling away without removing the fuel hose nozzle from her car, the nozzle was damaged. The grand total for repairing the nozzle was $414.
Later that day, appellee reported the incident to her supervisor, Corporal Paul Sterling, and Sterling issued a Memorandum of Notification to appellee advising her that certain documents relating to the incident would be placed in her personnel file. These documents were: (1) a "Motor Vehicle Accident or Loss Notice," (2) a Supervisor's Incident Investigation Report (SIIR), and (3) a Form 242 Internal Investigation Notification (first Form 242). Appellee signed the Memorandum of Notification, the SIIR, and the Form 242. Appellee handwrote the words "under duress" immediately below her signatures on each of these documents.
Of particular interest in this case is the SIIR dated October 3, 1994. The SIIR is a County government form, the heading of which states: "Montgomery County Government Department of Finance . Division of Risk Management." The record indicates that the SIIR is not restricted to police use. The SIIR is evidently used for documenting incidents involving damage to County property or injury to County personnel. In this case, it appears that both Sterling and appellee recorded on the SIIR all of the relevant information pertaining to the damage to the fuel hose nozzle. At a section of the SIIR calling for a description of the incident in the "Employee's Words," appellee provided a handwritten explanation of the incident. Appellee signed her name "under duress" beneath this explanation. In another section calling for the supervisor to explain the steps "taken to prevent a recurrence," Sterling handwrote the word "Counseled."
The record reflects that the October 3, 1994 incident was not the first time appellee drove away without removing the fuel h
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