Published: 12/11/2007 Court upholds firing of guard who compared sheriff to Hitler By Julie Manganis Staff writer
MIDDLETON - A federal appeals court has upheld the firing of a former Middleton Jail guard who made comments comparing Sheriff Frank Cousins to Adolf Hitler. Joseph Curran filed suit last year, shortly after he was fired, claiming his dismissal was a violation of his First Amendment right to free speech. Earlier this year, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the claim. Curran appealed, and last week a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeal. Curran's lawyer said he may appeal again. Curran had served as campaign manager for Bill Murley, another correctional officer who was running against Cousins for sheriff in 2004. The lawsuit alleged that within days of the election, Cousins removed Curran from the department's tactical team and closed a boot camp program that Murley had created. A year later, Curran was suspended for 30 days for violating the department's sick-leave policy, after a captain expressed concerns that Curran was threatening toward a superior officer, making veiled references to Nazis, when the officer confronted him about a sick day he had taken in September 2005. Curran, it was later learned, had posted messages on the Essex County Correctional Officers Association Web site in 2004 and again in 2005, comparing Cousins to a Nazi. "Public employees do not lose their First Amendment rights to speak on matters of public concern simply because they are public employees," the court, quoting a 1983 case, wrote. "Still, those rights are not absolute." Courts must balance the interests of an employer in running an orderly operation and the employee's rights, the court said. The posting that led to Curran's firing, the court found, "included speech going far beyond providing information in which there was a legitimate public interest." "The posting urged department administrators to engage in insubordination and insulted their integrity," the court found, noting that Curran compared Cousins to Hitler and referred to a 1944 plot by German generals to assassinate Hitler. "By analogy, Curran urged a similar secret plot against the sheriff," the court found. "It is difficult to find any First Amendment value to the citizenry in these portions of the November 30 posting." Curran and his lawyer had argued that no reasonable person would have taken the posting seriously and that the firing was an overreaction.
The panel disagreed, finding, "The substantial risk of disruption to the department is apparent from the text of the (posting) and the escalation of Curran's speech." Curran's lawyer, Harvey Schwartz, said he was "troubled" by the decision and may seek a further appeal before the full Court of Appeals. Schwartz said the courts have increasingly tended to limit the free speech rights of government employees and treated public agencies more like private businesses, which have been held to have far greater leeway in firing employees. Curran has started a business since his firing, Schwartz said. The Sheriff's Department issued a press release but declined to comment further on the court's decision.
Posted by: exscrew
Curran and another guy Cousins fired started that bulletproof backpack company.
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