Cummings v. Civil Service Commission

I respectfully dissent.

Mr. Cummings began work as a probation officer with the Los Angeles County Probation Department (Probation Department) in August 1976. Prior to the incidents at issue in this case he received three minor disciplinary actions, the most severe of which was a three-day suspension more than nine years earlier. None of those incidents involved dishonesty. Since those incidents, the civil service commission found, Cummings had “an exemplary record . . . and his last evaluation was outstanding.”

The incidents which resulted in Cummings’s discharge arose in 1992 when, for personal reasons, he used the color of his authority as a probation officer to obtain confidential information from the California Department of Corrections and the Riverside Police Department regarding the husband of a woman with whom Cummings had a romantic relationship. Cummings then lied to his supervisor about obtaining this information.

The undisputed evidence showed Cummings obtained this information because he had been threatened by the husband who had a gun, a car, and the *1654 keys to Cummings’s apartment and, Cummings believed, was mentally unbalanced. The record also shows, without…

Because the civil service commission acted well within its discretion in discharging Deputy Probation Officer Earl Cummings, Jr., for misusing his authority, violating confidential records, and lying to other governmental officials and his own superiors, we affirm the judgment.

We also affirm the principles Justice Johnson expressed recently and well for this unanimous court: a deputy probation officer’s “job is a position of trust and the public has a right to the highest standard of behavior from those they invest with the power and authority of a law enforcement officer. Honesty, credibility and temperament are crucial to the proper performance of an officer’s duties. Dishonesty is incompatible with the public trust. Abuse of power cannot be tolerated.” (Talmo v. Civil Service Com. (1991) 231 Cal.App.3d 210, 231 [ 282 Cal.Rptr. 240 ].)

*1646 Procedural Background

In September 1992, Paul Higa, chief of the Juvenile Institutions Bureau of the Los Angeles County Probation Department, ordered an internal investigation of Deputy Probation Officer Cummings’s having obtained information about Carmichael Flowers from confidential records of the Department of Corrections and…

WOODS (Fred), J.

Because the civil service commission acted well within its discretion in discharging Deputy Probation Officer Earl Cummings, Jr., for misusing his authority, violating confidential records, and lying to other governmental officials and his own superiors, we affirm the judgment.

(1) We also affirm the principles Justice Johnson expressed recently and well for this unanimous court: a deputy probation officer's "job is a position of trust and the public has a right to the highest standard of behavior from those they invest with the power and authority of a law enforcement officer. Honesty, credibility and temperament are crucial to the proper performance of an officer's duties. Dishonesty is incompatible with the public trust. Abuse of power cannot be tolerated." ( Talmo v. Civil Service Com. (1991) 231 Cal. App.3d 210, 231 [ 282 Cal. Rptr. 240 ].)

In September 1992, Paul Higa, chief of the Juvenile Institutions Bureau of the Los Angeles County Probation Department, ordered an internal investigation of Deputy Probation Officer Cummings's having obtained information about Carmichael Flowers from confidential records of the Department of Corrections and…