Supreme Court won’t rule on Messer case

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July 6, 2012

Supreme Court won’t rule on Messer case

Indiana Court of Appeals decision to uphold suspension stands

By DANIEL SUDDEATH daniel.suddeath@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Mon Jul 09, 2012, 03:03 PM EDT

NEW ALBANY — A petition for the Indiana Supreme Court to hear Jack Messer’s appeal of a suspension from the New Albany Police Department has been denied.

The Supreme Court released a notice Friday stating it denied the request of Messer’s legal counsel to transfer jurisdiction of the case from the Indiana Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court.

In March and by a 2-1 vote, the Court of Appeals upheld the decision of the New Albany Police Merit Commission to suspend Messer for 30 days without pay for making alleged racist comments during a January 2010 roll call meeting.

Messer made a statement to the effect “the worst thing we ever did was to give those people their civil rights” in reference to black people. Messer didn’t deny making the statement, but said he was misunderstood and that he was criticizing the government for its treatment of minorities.

The decision had previously been upheld in 2011 in Floyd County Superior Court. Messer — a 28-year NAPD veteran and former New Albany City Councilman and mayoral candidate — has already served the suspension.

New Albany attorney Brandon Smith, who represented the merit commission in the case, said Friday he was not surprised by the Supreme Court’s ruling “because the Court of Appeals decided the case squarely within existing precedent.”

“It is unfortunate that the matter has been fought for so long, but I think this is an important victory for the NAPD’s right to hold its officers to a high standard of conduct,” he said.

Messer said Friday he’s ready to move on and that he had closure after he served the suspension.

“The attorney wanted to go forward with it, he gave it his best shot, if we can’t get [the Supreme Court] to listen then we can’t,” he said. “It’s a shame though, I was hoping they would.”

A message left late Friday afternoon for Messer’s attorney, Bart Betteau, hadn’t been returned as of press time. The notice released Friday stated that all of the justices concurred with the decision to deny the jurisdiction transfer request.