chapter questions
Chapter 9 Punishments to Fit Crimes, But Keep It Quiet
· “The cosmos is neither moral nor immoral; only people are. He who would move the world must first move himself.”
—Edward Ericson
Marion Wallingford had moved up quickly in the Melrose city bureaucracy. Melrose was a growing suburban city in an upper Midwest state. Wallingford was in the final stages of work on her master’s in public administration degree when she was made the acting personnel director. After completing her professional paper on the subject of absenteeism in the workplace, she was given her degree. A month later she was promoted to the position of personnel director for Melrose. Marion’s husband, Henry, was a professor of education at Fair Oaks State College where Marion did her graduate work. He was bright and always looking for an opportunity to publish and receive accolades of his colleagues.
Marion’s major professor talked with Henry at the party the public administration department held for its graduates. He mentioned that Marion’s paper was a quality effort, and that with some work, he might be able to make it into an article for a good education journal. Henry took the words seriously. That summer Henry and Marion worked over her professional paper and integrated some references to existing education literature into the text, and they sent if off to the Midwestern Review of Education, a peer-reviewed academic publication. In the fall, the coauthored article was accepted for publication, and it appeared in the next summer’s issue. Henry was able to put the publication on his annual report, and in accordance with Fair Oaks State College procedures it was judged to be meritorious, and Henry received a merit raise of $2,000 for his efforts. The money went into his base salary.
Dewey Frieze was a personnel officer with the Westminster County sheriff’s department. He had been a colleague of Marion’s in graduate school, and he had also received a master’s degree in public administration. Frieze and Marion Wallingford had been in the same public personnel seminar, which had been conducted by Professor Onslow Geddes. Geddes was a hands-on professor who encouraged class participation and a lot of group work. He had students write individual papers, but before they were submitted, the papers were circulated among members of the class and openly discussed. Frieze had been a negotiator with the county on its contract with the sheriff deputies’ union that semester. A major issue in bargaining was longevity pay and merit pay and how attendance records could affect the pay. Frieze decided to dig into the topic, and he used his class term paper assignment as an opportunity to explore dimensions of absenteeism in public sector employment. He wrote his paper for Professor Geddes’s class on this topic.
Two years passed by and it was time for contract negotiations again in Westminster County. Frieze was once again asked to be on the contract negotiations committee. In the 2 years of the existing contract, there had been several disputes and even a formal grievance over merit pay and the issue of absenteeism was central in one of the conflicts. The policy seemed to require further examination. Frieze, who was then teaching personnel courses at Westminster Community College, again decided to make a trip to the library and explore the literature on the topic. He did not find any article in Public Administration Review or in any municipal affairs journal that spoke to the topic, but there was an interesting title on an article in the Midwestern Review of Education. He was intrigued as he made his way down the bookshelf aisles of the Fair Oaks State College Library. The title sounded like it was right on the mark for what he needed.
When he opened the journal he was drawn to the text of the article. His first thoughts were that he must have read the article before. Maybe he read it when he was doing his research for that term paper for Professor Geddes. But no! The journal was dated a full year and a half after he had taken Onslow Geddes’s class! But the words were just too familiar. Then it hit him. He exclaimed out loud, “My God! These are my words.” He was reading parts of his term paper—word for word. He looked through the footnotes. To be true, several were for works he did not recognize, but most were sources he had used in his paper. He was stunned. Then he looked at the title again and under the title were the authors’ names and their affiliations: Henry Wallingford, PhD, Professor of Education, Fair Oaks State College; Marion Wallingford, Director of Personnel, City of Melrose. Marion had stolen his work and passed it off as her own. He closely looked over all the references again, and he looked through the text line by line. Marion and Henry Wallingford had not given him the slightest reference or recognition as a person who had furnished material for the article. It was theft, and Frieze had caught them.
Frieze was a pretty easy going guy, but he was also ambitious, and he knew that a major publication like this article could be helpful in a career. He was angry. He knew he had to do something, but he also knew that he had to move carefully. Before he said anything he had to have his ducks in order. Fortunately, he occasionally had dinner and drinks at a local restaurant called the Gables on Friday evenings, and so, too, did Onslow Geddes. He bided his time, and 3 weeks later Geddes walked in alone just after Frieze had arrived. He invited the professor to sit with him in a corner and share a few drinks. Two drinks down each, he asked if the professor kept old term papers. “Meticulously, I do, I do.” He asked if he could stop by his office and if they could both look at his paper from the personnel seminar. Geddes was a bit suspicious, but he agreed to do so that Saturday before the big game. The next day, they sat together as the article was retrieved from the file cabinet, and Frieze asked Geddes to immediately date it and sign on it that they were there, and to make a photocopy of it. He did so. Geddes told Frieze he could go one better. Geddes kept comments on copies of all the papers that had been circulated around the class—and he kept those papers, too. They were in a file that he rarely opened. But open it he did, and there the papers were—sixteen copies of Frieze’s paper and the copy that Marion had taken home with her, along with her handwritten comments on it. This was proof it was Frieze’s paper and proof that Marion Wallingford had taken it home and read it. Frieze made a copy but asked Geddes to keep the originals in a safe place. Then he confided to Professor Geddes what he had discovered.
Geddes was very hurt. To his knowledge, this had never happened in one of his classes before. He apologized that he had not been at Marion’s paper defense, as he had left the campus early that May to go to Europe. But that was not more important a use of his time than sitting on Wallingford’s review committee could have been. He could have stopped her and asked her to take the paper back and rewrite it before it was formally submitted. He was sure she would have done so if she knew that he was aware of what was going on. Then Geddes said, “Oh, my God, I could have stopped it then, and Henry would not have gotten involved. Oh, my God. I just had to take that trip.”
Frieze told him that in no way should he feel guilty, that he had earned the trip. But Geddes told him, “Dewey, Henry is my friend—for 15 years he has been my friend.” Geddes asked that Frieze make copies of the evidence and take the evidence to the dean of the graduate school, and that he do so without telling anyone else. Something would have to be done about the situation.
Frieze followed Geddes’s advice, except that he also took the evidence to Devonshire Toumey, the city manager. The chairman of public administration, Rick Woodlawn, received a call from the provost, and he was asked to bring all of Marion Wallingford’s records and papers to his office. The provost expressed dismay that someone from a newspaper had called a professor about a plagiarism case involving Wallingford. Woodlawn left the records with the provost. The provost told Woodlawn that he should immediately tell each of his faculty members that there would be severe disciplinary action taken if anyone spoke to a member of the press about the situation. Later that week the provost, graduate dean, dean of the college of education, and Woodlawn met with university attorneys and an attorney retained by Henry and Marion Wallingford.
Three days later, the Melrose Citizen Patriot reported that city personnel director Marion Wallingford had had her MPA degree taken away from her for violation of Fair Oaks State College procedures. City Manager Toomey indicated that the action did not affect Wallingford’s employment, as the MPA degree was not really a job requirement, and besides she had a master’s degree in philosophy anyway, so the second master’s was really superfluous. He declined comment when asked if the case involved plagiarism, and he further declined comment when asked if Mrs. Walling-ford was not the chairperson of the city’s ethical practices committee. The newspaper indicated that no action was being taken against a professor who was involved with Mrs. Wallingford in publishing an academic article that seemed to be at the center of the situation. In fact, the provost had made an agreement with Professor Wallingford that he would return the $2,000 salary increase he had received. In return, the university would permanently seal the record of the case and the university would instruct all university community members that they could never speak about the situation again.
The Midwestern Review of Education was never contacted. Dewey Frieze was told no more about the situation than was in the paper. A month later he saw Professor Onslow Geddes at the Gables. Geddes said, “Come over, the drinks are on me tonight. Let’s tie one on.” Dewey smiled, and Geddes smiled back and shrugged his shoulders.
Marion held on to her job for 5 more years through the administration of the city manager and his successor. Her husband completed 30 years at Fair Oaks State and retired. The two then moved to San Clemente Island, California.
Questions
· 1. Did the punishment in this case fit the crime? Should either of the Walling-fords have lost a job?
· 2. Could Professor Henry Wallingford have acted in good faith in helping his wife publish the article? Should his name have appeared first on the article?
· 3. Why was the state college so adamant about keeping the matter out of the press?
· 4. Could the college have disciplined a professor for disclosing information to the press about the situation?
· 5. Did Professor Geddes have any obligation to become directly involved in the case?
· 6. Should the college have informed the Midwestern Review of Education that some corrections were necessary? Is it fair that all future readers of the article in the Review will think that it was written by the Wallingfords?
· 7. Was the university obligated to make any amends to Dewey Frieze? What could have been done for him?
· 8. If the situation is kept quiet, can the case have any instruction value for students and professors regarding their conduct in the future?
· 9. Was the city manager correct in saying that Marion Wallingford’s behavior at the university was unrelated to her job?
Chapter 10 Boss, We’ve Got a Problem
· “It is easier to sleep at night with a bad legal decision rather than toss and turn over a bad moral decision. In other words, ‘Just go ahead and sue me.’”
—James E. Leidlein
Charlie Upton was viewed and admired as a professional policeman. He was well liked by everyone on the force. He headed the department’s Child Protective Services, which essentially consisted of just him. He was mostly plain clothed, only wearing a uniform on occasion. Any matters involving juveniles called for Upton’s intervention. Upton, a 17-year veteran of the police department, was born and raised in Summit, a mid-sized village in the Northeast. Like many communities, it seemed that everyone knew everybody, particularly the homegrown residents. Upton was one of these. He attended elementary and middle school and graduated from Summit High School. The high school principal, Mark Hammond, later became president of the Summit village council and he had regular contact with his former student, Upton. They had a close working relationship that became even closer when Upton ran for the Summit school board and easily won the election. The extent of Upton’s popularity was further demonstrated when his fellow school board members chose him as their chairman.
Upton’s involvement went beyond the village and the school district. Although not married or having any children of his own, he was heavily involved in youth activities, most notably his role with Summit’s vibrant pee-wee football league. Pee-wee football, for boys ages 11 through 13, was a popular fall family activity in the close-knit town. Hundreds gathered on Saturday afternoons to watch and cheer for their favorite team. Upton was as much involved in this as he was in his job and the schools. He was on the league’s board of directors, and in yet another example of the fondness Summit’s residents held for Upton, the board elected him their president. Upton, of course, had his own team of twenty 11-, 12-, and 13-year-old boys. In fact, the village administrator’s, own son, Timmy, was the star quarterback for Upton’s beloved Raiders.
Competition was tough and sometimes brutal in the league, as the managers and coaches took the game very seriously. Winning was not anything—it was everything. This was especially so for Upton. His boys could not lose. It was not uncommon for him to be ejected from a game for arguing with a referee over a questionable call. Once, after a rare loss by his Raiders, Upton sat on the bench sulking while the boys from both teams reunited for their treats with the teams’ mothers. Upton remained there by himself for well over an hour.
Nonetheless, everyone still loved him. They admired his devotion to his team, to his job, and to his school board work. After one fall football season, Upton stopped Village Administrator Tim Bell during one of his daily visits to the village hall. He told Bell that during the Christmas break he was planning to take the boys to his condo near Disney World as a reward for their winning season. He would treat all of them to a day at one of America’s most popular theme parks. Upton thought Bell would be thrilled that his son would get a free trip to Florida. Bell wasn’t. He told Upton that he did not think that was such a great idea. As it worked out, Upton dropped his plans to the disappointment of other residents who thought that this was just another gesture of Upton’s generosity and good nature. The revelation soon to come out would split Summit wide open.
Another favorite season for Charlie was Christmas. Being rather robust, he filled the village’s Santa suit rather well and made for a very believable Santa Claus. He loved to visit the Village’s elementary schools as Santa around the holiday. He enjoyed nothing more than hoisting the little children onto his lap so they could tell him what they wanted for Christmas. He would tell them all to be good little boys and girls. The highlight of the season was when Charlie/Santa was delivered to the citywide Christmas party by helicopter.
Charles Upton held a secret ... a very deep, dark secret. Charlie Upton was a pedophile. He liked and preyed upon little boys.
As was typical for Tim Bell, the telephone was already ringing in his village administrator’s office when he walked in on a Monday morning. As expected, it was one of his council members in what most likely would be a long-winded conversation. They almost always were. His council was a demanding lot. They all wanted nearly daily updates on village business, particularly personnel matters. It was not unusual for Bell to spend 3 to 4 hours a day on the telephone with his elected supervisors. It did not appear that this day was going to be any different.
About 15 minutes into his conversation, Police Chief Martin Owens appeared at Bell’s open office door. He looked flushed and something was obviously disturbing him as he stood at the administrator’s door. Bell shrugged his shoulders indicating he did not know how long he would be on the phone. While Owens was used to this, he expected Bell’s attention as he felt that his problem was more urgent than the gossip of a council member. Bell paced for 15 minutes outside the administrator’s office, giving up in frustration by motioning to Bell to call him and mouthing the word, “Urgent.”
By the time he finished the near hour-long telephone conversation with the council member, another one was on hold that took another 45 minutes. It was nearly 2 hours before Village Administrator Bell walked across the parking lot to the police department and into Chief Owens’s office. By now, Owens was nearly beside himself and appeared quite worried and distraught. Bell sat in a chair facing the chief’s desk while Owens, in what was highly unusual, closed the office door. As he sat down, Owens leaned forward across his desk towards Bell and said, “Boss, we’ve got a problem.”
The chief related that he had received a telephone call first thing that morning from a social worker who was treating a 12-year-old boy for emotional problems. The provider told Chief Owens that the boy said he had been sexually molested by none other than the department’s beloved Charlie Upton. When asked how reliable this source was, Chief Owens replied, “Very.” The village administrator was also shocked and alarmingly commented on how Upton was his own son’s football coach. Both the administrator and the chief agreed that this matter needed to be fully investigated and it should be done so by an outside agency. But what to do with Officer Upton while it was being investigated became a topic of heated discussion. Administrator Bell took the position that Upton should be immediately relieved of duty pending the outcome of the investigation. Chief Owens, already under community criticism for his strict disciplinary policies, wanted to place the popular Upton at a desk job until the allegations were proven or unproven. Upton’s captain, his immediate supervisor, sided with the police chief.
All agreed, however, that the first order of business would be to call Upton in and confront him with the allegations. If he denied them, which all expected him to do, then Village Administrator Bell agreed to let the Chief assign Upton to desk duty. It was Upton’s day off but the chief contacted him and told him to report to his office at 3:00 that afternoon. City Administrator Bell told Chief Owens to report to his office immediately following his meeting with Officer Upton. The meeting at 3:00 was a brief one, and the chief did as he was instructed.
When asked by the village administrator how Upton reacted to the allegations, Chief Owens said Upton stared at the floor for moments, then shook his head saying, “Well, there goes 17 years of police work down the drain.”
The village administrator immediately took this as an admission of guilt and directed that he be immediately placed on unpaid leave and that he surrender his badge and weapon.
The outside agency advised that it would take 3 weeks to complete its investigation into the allegations. In the interim, only the city administrator, police chief, and captain were to know what Upton was being investigated for. No other city employees or city officials, including the village president and council, were to know.
During the investigative period, Chief Owens and Village Administrator Bell discussed at length how to deal with the media if charges were filed and the issue became public. They knew that there would be a media frenzy. A man with Upton’s background and popularity being charged with child molestation would surely make good copy. Both Owens and Bell drafted anticipated media questions and even rehearsed their responses.
The investigation was completed and Upton was charged with criminal sexual conduct with a minor. He was immediately terminated. Before the charges were announced, Village Administrator Bell called a meeting of the village’s department heads. To say they were shocked and in disbelief would be an understatement. No one said a word. Immediately following this meeting, the village administrator held a closed door session with the village council to advise them of the pending announcement that the village’s police officer in charge of youth offenses was himself being charged with child molestation.
That meeting did not go well. The council was very vocal and upset that they were only just then being made aware of the situation. Three of the seven council members chastised the village administrator for his knee-jerk reaction. They argued that Bell shouldn’t have terminated Upton when he had not yet been convicted. These were only charges, they said, that might not be true. They directed Bell to put Upton back in uniform and in a patrol car because even if he were guilty, which they did not believe he was, they believed he would never do it again. The village administrator refused to do so. He found it incredulous that council members would even think of putting a suspected child molester in a village police car.
The public announcement was made, and, as suspected, the town went into an uproar, with many residents coming to good ole’ Upton’s defense. The press descended en masse on Summit. In press interviews, his supporters all said essentially that the kid was lying. Charlie would never do that, they stated emphatically. A local television station reporter interviewed both Chief Owens and Village Administrator Bell. The news anchor, after seeing the field report, commented on the shock and disbelief on the faces of these two gentlemen “having just learned of these shocking charges.” Both Owens and Bell, of course, had known about them for weeks. Apparently the rehearsals paid off.
A local television reporter confronted the superintendent of schools and asked what the school board planned to do while its president faced these charges. “We have determined that the victim was not enrolled in this school district and, therefore, it is not a concern of ours,” was the superintendent’s on-camera response.
Following Upton’s termination, the village’s finance director brought to Administrator Bell a separation pay form to sign. Traditionally (and contractually) employees who separate their employment are paid for their unused sick and vacation time. During his 17 years, Upton had accumulated about $26,000 in unused time. The administrator refused to sign it.
“I am not rewarding a child molester with $26,000,” he told the finance director rather emphatically.
She argued that it was in Upton’s labor contract, and, therefore, the village must pay it. She adamantly insisted that the Administrator approve the payment. He just as adamantly refused.
“Well, he is going to sue us,” she said.
“Well, let him!” Bell disgustedly responded, “Let some judge order me to do it!”
Upton never received his separation pay.
Upton was arraigned and given personal bond with the condition that he have no contact with children. He hired an attorney and 2 weeks after his arrest he pleaded no contest to the charge. While this was not an admission of guilt, it is treated the same as if it were. He was sentenced to a year wearing an electronic tether and 2 years on probation. He served no jail time. To this day, some residents believe he was framed by the police chief and village administrator because they were jealous of his popularity and supposedly feared he had too much power in the community.
Questions
· 1. Was it unethical for the village administrator to pronounce Upton guilty based on his response when confronted with the allegation?
· 2. Should the village administrator have informed the village council as soon as he became aware of the allegation?
· 3. Was it appropriate for the administrator to be involved or should this just have been left to the police chief, especially in light of the fact that Upton was his son’s football coach?
· 4. Was it ethical for the village administrator and police chief to rehearse their answers to the news media?
· 5. Was the school superintendent’s response appropriate?
· 6. Was it unethical for the village administrator to refuse to pay Upton for his accumulated sick and vacation time?
· 7. Was the village administrator’s refusal to reinstate Upton as directed by three council members unethical? Would your answer be different if a majority of them directed him to do so?
Chapter 11 Sometimes It’s Tough to Explain
· “To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one’s own, is ever the beginning of one’s real ethical development.”
—Felix Adler
Sal Williams, the evening anchor of WNEW–TV, the major network affiliate in Wallingford, stuffed the microphone right into Mayor Peter Brockman’s face. “Isn’t it true that Officer Wells was in a traffic accident while on duty as one of your policemen?”
“Yes, sir,” the mayor responded.
“And now you are trying to fire him because of his disabilities.”
“That’s a simple conclusion for a complicated case, sir.”
“Well, it sure sounds that way to us, and I am Sal Williams, reporting from outside the chambers of Wallingford city council.”
Sometimes things happen that take more than a sound bite to describe. Such was the case of Officer Jerry Wells of the Wallingford police department. Everyone in Wallingford liked Jerry Wells, and they certainly sympathized with him after his on-duty traffic accident. The traffic report clearly revealed that another car ran a red light and broadsided Wells’s police vehicle. After the wreck, Wells remained on sick leave at full pay for nearly 3 months. He had broken his leg in two places, and two vertebrae in his back had been chipped. Then he came back to light duty and finally to full duty. It appeared that he was fully recovered from the accident, and he was performing full duties as a police officer.
Wells loved sports, and he was always an available party to join a pick-up game of basketball, touch football, or softball. He had been warned by his doctors not to unduly exert himself over the next 6 months, although he was ruled fit for duty as a policeman.
During a pick-up game of basketball he tried to dribble behind his back and he twisted his leg and fell to the ground. He couldn’t get up. An ambulance had to be called, and he was off to another long stay in the hospital. Again the city put him on sick leave. He left the hospital and went home to convalesce, and his available sick leave ended. The city put him back on the payroll with the understanding that he would return to work as soon as the doctors said he could.
Two months went by. Mayor Brockman was informed of the situation, and he talked it over with Police Chief Fred Arlington and with the city’s personnel director, Jack Vinewood. All agreed that the situation could not persist this way forever. Either Wells would come back to work, or he would have to be removed from the force. The union representative of the police force indicated that the union would take action if he were removed from the force.
Finally, an ultimatum was given. Report to work or get fired. Wells came into work and requested that he be given a desk job. While his salary was two times that of a dispatcher, the police chief agreed to train him as a dispatcher. This took 2 weeks. Then Wells began duty on the police radio channels. The trouble was that his injuries required that he stand up every 20 minutes. The dispatchers were given 5-minute breaks every 2 hours. The city tried; the police chief tried; but Wells just couldn’t sit still. He requested another desk job. There was no other desk job available. Wells then requested that he be made the city process server. This was a police position that was filled by a senior officer in recognition both of seniority and longevity, but also in recognition that an older officer could best handle the people-to-people contact of process serving and that the job was less demanding physically. The city needed only one process server, and the police department was not going to bump the incumbent holder of the position for Wells.
A second ultimatum was given. Show up for work as a patrolman or be fired from the force. Wells showed up ready to go to work driving a patrol car. However, he showed up with a walking cane. The chief sent him home. Wells was issued a final ultimatum: show up ready for patrol duty or you are done. Wells refused to show up.
Police Chief Arlington discussed the matter with personnel officer Vinewood, and they decided that the full city council would have to make a ruling on whether to keep Wells on the force in his nonworking capacity or to fire him. They recommended firing him. It was their position that taking no action just burned up city resources. All that time, Wells was being paid full salary. If he were fired, the city would have to pay no more salary. The union could complain, but it really could not take action, other than providing representation for Wells. Moreover, Wells could not take action against the city for disability pay and workmen’s compensation until he was fired. The two decided that it was in Wells’s best interest to be fired.
Mayor Brockman concurred, and he told the council that their vote would not be a vote against Wells, but rather a vote to resolve the case with some finality. The mayor also indicated to the council that his discussions with the city attorney convinced him that they had a strong case for avoiding a major disability claim as they had ample evidence that Wells was performing the full duties of his office at the time of his second injury, and that the second injury occurred while he was off duty and involved in an activity he had been warned about—exerting himself while playing basketball.
The city council went along with the recommendations and fired Wells. Sal Williams reported the action on the evening news in a way that was anything but flattering to the city.
Questions
· 1. Was the city obligated to fit Wells back into the workforce of the police department?
· 2. Should the police chief have given Wells the position of process server, as it was a duty he probably could have performed?
· 3. Should the city have fired Wells immediately after he had expended his sick time following the second accident—given that he was not able to report back to work?
· 4. Was the news media obligated to give the story more complete coverage, in effect presenting both sides?
· 5. Should the city have found a nonpolice job for Wells?