During a special meeting Aug. 14, the Cleveland Community Police Commission passed rules for police officer disciplinary hearings, clearing an important hurdle on its way to oversight of officer discipline.
Since the passage of Issue 24 in 2021, Cleveland’s charter gave final authority over police officer discipline to the 13-member CPC, made up almost entirely of civilians without law enforcement experience.
Commissioner Tera Coleman, an attorney with the Cleveland law firm BakerHostetler who joined the CPC earlier this year, wrote the manual.
“What this procedure is going to allow us to do is to actually start that process to have evidentiary hearings to make those final determinations,” Coleman said.
The new manual details each step in the process, from the office receiving a complaint to holding a public hearing with the option for the civilian making the complaint and the officer who is the subject of the complaint to argue their cases.
There weren’t many examples of these kinds of hearings to draw from while writing the manual, said Graham.
“This was a task, I will tell you,” said Graham. “It certainly was a test, and again, it will have to be battle tested, and the CPC is open to making adjustments as we get feedback and as we actually conduct these hearings.”
The commission, created nearly four years ago and already on its second group of commissioners, has yet to consider a single case.
The challenges of writing the hearing manual, along with infighting among the previous group of commissioners and disputes with the city over records, contributed to the delay, according to commissioners.
The process begins when a complaint is submitted. The CPC is not an investigatory agency so they can only review discipline that’s already been investigated and decide whether it should be increased or, in cases of possible retaliation against an officer, decreased.
The executive director (currently Alix Noureddine) prepares a “case package,” which includes all the materials from whichever agency originally investigated – typically either the Office of Professional Standards, which only investigates complaints received from civilians, or the police department’s Internal Affairs Unit.
The commission’s Accountability Committee will then vote whether to hold an “evidentiary hearing” in front of the full commission. Officers, or their lawyers, will have the opportunity to submit briefs to the commission before the hearing. During the hearing, the executive director, officer and complainants will have an opportunity to make their cases.
It's then up to the full commission to vote on whether to alter the discipline. It’s unclear whether they will take the step of imposing specific suspension lengths or termination, said Coleman.
“The charter gives us the ability to increase discipline or impose discipline where none was given originally,” said Coleman. “I don't envision that the CPC will kind of be taking on the role of kind of deciding exactly what, beyond increases. However, we haven't done one before. This will definitely be an evidentiary procedure that will adjust as we actually conduct hearings.”
The decisions will be based on a majority vote and a “preponderance of the evidence,” meaning it was “more likely than not” that the original discipline imposed was correct or incorrect, according to the manual.
The CPC must still get approval for its disciplinary procedure from the U.S. Department of Justice and federal monitor overseeing the police consent decree.
