Supreme Court Rejects Former Concord Officer's Attempt To Remove Herself From Laurie List

By Ethan DeWitt, New Hampshire Bulletin

The New Hampshire Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt by a police officer to remove her name from New Hampshire’s Laurie List — the state’s database of officers with reported credibility concerns — despite the officer’s arguments that the conduct was long ago and irrelevant.

The case stemmed from an incident in 2013 in which a Concord police officer was fired after being accused of obtaining a colleague’s firearm without permission and lying to superiors about it.

The officer, referred to anonymously as “Jane Doe” in the opinion, had taken the colleague’s firearm with her on a trip to transport a prisoner to a hospital. The colleague had realized the gun was missing from its locker and had alerted her supervisors. Those supervisors called Jane Doe at the hospital and asked her to read the serial number of her firearm. After the number matched the colleague’s gun, Doe allegedly gave conflicting and false accounts to those supervisors over the incident, according to the court.

After an internal affairs investigation found that Doe “struggled to answer specific questions” about what happened, Doe was fired and the Concord Police Department submitted her name to the “exculpatory evidence schedule.”

That list exists to let prosecutors know of any past misconduct that could be a liability if prosecutors put an officer on the stand in a criminal trial.

In order for a police officer to be added to the list by the Department of Justice, there must be a “sustained finding that the officer has engaged in conduct negatively reflecting on the officer’s trustworthiness or credibility,” according to the state statute.

Doe later sued Concord, alleging gender discrimination and wrongful termination, and obtained a settlement with the city in which the city agreed to move her disciplinary records out of her personnel file and officially label her departure a “negotiated resignation.”

Years later, and after the 2021 passage of a law requiring public release of the Laurie List, Doe brought legal action against Concord and the Department of Justice seeking to remove her name from the list before it was released.

Doe argued she should not have been added to the list because her “alleged misstatement of fact” did not rise to the level of being potentially exculpatory evidence in any future criminal court case. She contended that the factual record surrounding the firearm was “immaterial to any policy violation.”

Doe also argued that because the disciplinary documents relating to the firearm incident were removed from her personnel file, she should not have been added to the Laurie List.

And she said it is unlikely that she would be a witness in any foreseeable criminal cases, and that her inclusion in the published list “would serve no purpose other than to publicly embarrass her.”

But the Supreme Court rejected that argument and said the mere fact that it is unlikely for Doe to serve as a future witness is not enough for her to be excluded from the list. The real test, the court held, is whether the officer’s misconduct would or would not be admissible by a court during a trial; if it would, the likelihood of the trial happening does not make a difference.

“There is no dispute that, after multiple proceedings, the plaintiff was found to have been untruthful,” the court ruled. “The sustained findings that the plaintiff lied to her colleagues and supervisors could be admissible to impeach her credibility if, in the future, there arises a criminal case at which she is called as a witness.”

Since the 2021 law, the Supreme Court has heard several cases in which officers have asked for their names to be removed, and in some cases, the court has ruled with the officers. On Tuesday, the court reiterated that officers should only remain on the list if their alleged misconduct relates to their truthfulness — misconduct allegations that don’t involve deceit or lying are likely not relevant for the Laurie List.

“We conclude that the trial court correctly determined that the plaintiff’s personnel information contains ‘potentially exculpatory evidence,’” the court concluded Wednesday.

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