Lawyer sues State Police after she says the department failed to turn over disciplinary records on the trooper who arrested her client in Quincy

Last month, a man facing charges of assault and battery on a police officer and resisting arrest from a March traffic stop walked out of Quincy District Court a free man after a prosecutor with the Norfolk County District Attorney's office suddenly dropped the charges.

In a suit filed in Suffolk Superior Court today, the man's attorney says the prosecutor decided to ask the judge to drop the charges via a nolle prosequifiling - which the judge did - rather than try to explain why State Police wouldn't turn over information about disciplinary issues or complaints facing the trooper who conducted the arrest.

The suit, by attorney Cameron Casey, her client, Shawn Davenport, and the Committee for Public Counsel Services, states that the trooper's body-cam video already offered damning evidence the man should never have been arrested for the two felonies because he did not attack the trooper, let alone resist him, that in fact, the trooper pondered whether to arrest the man or kick him after finding no evidence the man had any drugs on him or in his car, at which point a local police officer told the trooper to "mute" his body-worn camera.

But, the complaint continues, a colleague in the group's Quincy office told her in August that the trooper's name sounded familiar and that he might be on the Norfolk DA's "Brady list" of police officers facing possible disciplinary investigation, so Case filed a public-records request with State Police to obtain any records of the trooper's disciplinary record and any open disciplinary investigations. The next day, the suit continues, a research analyst with the State Police legal office reported "a diligent search" found no "responsive records" on the trooper.

In fact, the complaint states, another attorney, in Braintree, had filed a complaint with State Police in July alleging the trooper had acted improperly in three cases - in one of which he allegedly "placed staged evidence" at a crash scene suggesting the driver had been transporting drugs for sale, and that after prosecutors saw the trooper's body cam evidence in that case, dismissed the charges against her client.

On Oct. 2, the complaint continues, Casey's colleague told her she was now pretty sure the trooper was, in fact on the DA's "Brady list." The next day, at a court hearing:

Attorney Casey explained to the Court that she had reason to believe that exculpatory information about [the trooper] existed which had not been turned over by the Commonwealth.

The prosecuting attorney, some minutes later, filed a nolle prosequi, declining to proceed with the Commonwealth's case against Mr. Davenport.

On information and belief, had Attorney Casey relied on MSP's public records response and not happened to have learned, fortuitously, of [the trooper's] misconduct from a colleague, the criminal prosecution of her client would not have ended so quickly.

The complaint continues that after Davenport's case ended, CPCS got a copy of notification that the trooper was, in fact, on the DA's "Brady list:"

The letter indicates that the evidence which must be disclosed as exculpatory pertains to the events described in [the other attorney's] complaint, the very records that MSP failed to find and produce in response to Attorney Casey's request.

The suit seeks a court declaration that State Police violated the state's public-records law, the delivery of all of the disciplinary records initially sought by they attorney, attorney's fees and punitive damages.

State Police have until March 10 to answer the suit.

Complete complaint (6.2M PDF).