Civil Service Commission Vacates San Mateo Sheriff’s Lieutenant’s 48-Hour Suspension

On January 3, 1997, the San Mateo County Civil Service Commission vacated, in its entirety, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Michael Lopez’ 48—hour suspension. The Sheriff’s Department initially suspended him for allegedly failing to properly supervise subordinates who had inappropriately misused County time and money during prisoner extraditions. Lopez was represented by Carroll, Burdick and McDonough Associate, Phil Ginsburg.

At the time of his suspension, Lopez had been employed by the Sheriff’s Department for approximately 16 years. In October 1995, he was assigned to the Court Services and Transportation Unit which provides court services, prisoner transportation and extraditions from out of state. He supervised two sergeants in the Transportation Unit, one of whom made all the arrangements for the out of state transportation trips, including airline and hotel reservations and the scheduling of deputies to perform these tasks. Unfortunately, during Lopez’ tenure, extradition trips were taken to three different locations during which the deputies involved allegedly utilized excessive time to accomplish the extradition tasks, resulting in unnecessary expenditures and increased costs. Apparently, because these extraditions occurred under Lopez’ command, he was given a 40-hour suspension.

At the Civil Service Commission hearing, Ginsburg established that Lopez had no direct or indirect knowledge that the extraditions involved excess time or money. Ginsburg demonstrated that there were no departmental orders or rules which specifically governed or established extradition policies or procedures. Any and all informal documents pertaining to extraditions clearly placed responsibilities for planning, organizing and supervising the out of state trips with other people.

The Civil Service Commission concluded that the evidence presented did not substantiate the imposition of discipline and that the evidence indicated that misconduct was not brought to Lopez’ attention until he was no longer in charge of the Unit. The Commission ordered that Lt. Lopez be made whole for any and all lost wages and benefits as a result of his suspension,