Boston looks to move Dennis White suit to federal court

The city of Boston is looking to move Dennis White’s lawsuit over to federal court as both sides gird for more legal wrangling.

White, the now-fired police commissioner, has an ongoing lawsuit against the city of Boston and Acting Mayor Kim Janey in Suffolk Superior Court — a suit that’s been active for the past several weeks since Janey originally moved to oust him.

Many of the initial complaints in White’s suit are now moot as written, as he was seeking to bar Janey from firing him. The acting mayor canned the commissioner on Monday after two different judges rejected White’s attorney’s filings for a preliminary injunction to stop her from doing so.

But White’s lawyer Nick Carter said Monday, after the firing, that he’d be amending the complaint to include allegations that Janey and the city have violated White’s civil rights in the manner in which they fired him.

As of Tuesday evening, an amended complaint hadn’t appeared in court documents. Carter didn’t respond to requests for further comment about what’s to come.

The city’s latest filing would remove the case from Suffolk Superior Court and place it in U.S. District Court. Kay Hodge, one of the two outside attorneys the city brought on at a $250-an-hour rate, argued in the filing that White’s argument contains claims of unconstitutionality, so federal courts are the right venue for it.

Janey pulled the trigger on firing White on Monday, more than three weeks into an ugly public fight over the commissioner’s job. White had been suspended since Feb. 3 — just two days after then-Mayor Martin Walsh promoted him to be the top cop — when decades-old abuse allegations surfaced. Janey last month attempted to release an independent investigation into White and then fire him, but White sued before the required pre-termination hearing happened.

While White and Carter didn’t have much luck in Suffolk Superior Court, they attempted to hold court in the public realm. Carter released affidavits from White and former Commissioner William Gross that Walsh must have known about the allegations — which Walsh denies — and White further alleged that his then-wife was the real aggressor and abuser in their marriage, which she denies, as White says he didn’t abuse anyone.

Meanwhile, several of Janey’s opponents in the mayoral race took aim at her announcement that she’d be launching a nationwide search for a permanent replacement for White. City Councilors Michelle Wu and Andrea Campbell in particular focused on a need for a permanent appointment to wait until the next mayor is elected.

Janey said Monday she would initiate a nationwide search for a permanent replacement, and that she’d be looking to have the search wrap up by the end of the year. Janey, as acting mayor, isn’t allowed to name a permanent replacement; anyone she names can serve as long as her time as acting mayor, which will end after the results of the November general election are certified in November.

The next-elected mayor — which could be her — will have the ability to name a permanent commissioner to fill out the current five-year police commissioner term, which ends in 2022. White earned $265,000-plus last year.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3pzTx0a