The state’s public defender agency is suing the Massachusetts State Police, for allegedly withholding the internal affairs record of a trooper accused of tampering with evidence.
The State Police declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation, but released a document showing that the agency did not substantiate the evidence tampering allegation.
The dispute dates back to the April arrest of the Quincy resident, who the Globe is not identifying because the charges against him were dropped, during a traffic stop. Trooper Austin Rose pulled the man over and searched his car for drugs, according to court records. Rose claimed the man resisted, and the man was charged with assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
But the man’s public lawyer said in a motion filed in June that body camera video showed him attempting to cooperate as Rose yelled at him. The trooper did not find drugs in the car.
Casey wrote in the defense motion that, “The video shows Trooper Rose telling a responding officer, ‘I was debating taking [the man] on A&BPO right now, but I think I’m just going to kick him. Is that OK?’ and the other officer responding, ‘No, mute that,’ in reference to Trooper Rose’s body camera.”
Casey asked State Police for Rose’s internal affairs files on August 13, and the next day the agency said it found no records, according to the lawsuit.
But Casey later learned that another attorney had filed a complaint against Rose the previous month, accusing him of staging evidence to fabricate an OUI charge. In response to questions for this story, the State Police released a memo summarizing its inquiry into the complaint, which found that Rose had not deliberately staged evidence. The agency did not open a formal internal affairs investigation into the matter.
In October, Casey learned Rose was on the Norfolk District Attorney’s “Brady list” of officers whose misconduct had to be disclosed to defendants, according to the lawsuit.
“The public records that MSP failed to identify or provide pertained to the same prior misconduct which the prosecutor was required to disclose as exculpatory evidence — allegations that Trooper Rose was caught by his own body worn camera tampering with evidence to support false criminal charges,” the lawsuit says.
At a hearing the next day, Casey told a judge that the state had filed to turn over the evidence as required.
“The Commonwealth immediately declined to prosecute [the defendant],” the lawsuit says.
Since the lawsuit was filed, two more CPCS attorneys have sued the State Police, alleging that the agency has unlawfully delayed responding to records requests, impeding their ability to defend clients.
The State Police has previously faced criticism for delays and vagueness in publicly disclosing officer misconduct.
In May, the CPCS accused the State Police of unlawfully delaying its reporting of complaints to the POST Commission, the state’s police misconduct watchdog. State Police say delays in reporting are because the agency only concludes internal investigations after any related criminal proceedings are completed, citing guidelines from the US Department of Justice.
And the disclosures it does make are also often vague, a Globe review of POST disciplinary data found this summer. Of the State Police’s 473 substantiated charges disclosed by POST as of July, 85 percent were listed as “other/conduct unbecoming,” and did not list a specific policy violation. While some agencies include narrative details of the underlying conduct in their filings, the State Police descriptions of complaints are typically three words or less.