28-03-2025
Personnel Board delays appeal hearings of officers involved in Perkins shooting
Mar. 28—The Personnel Board indefinitely delayed the appeal hearings on the job status of three former and one current Decatur police officers involved in the Steve Perkins shooting.
On the advice of its attorney, Richard Lehr, the board voted at its monthly meeting on Thursday morning to place the hearings for Sgt. Vance Summers and officers Joey Williams, Christopher Mukadam and Mac Marquette on hold.
Perkins, 35, was shot and killed by Marquette in the early morning hours of Sept. 29, 2023, after a tow truck driver attempted to repossess his truck from his driveway. Marquette and the three officers intervened after an initial confrontation between Perkins and the tow truck driver.
Mayor Tab Bowling fired three of the officers and suspended another in November 2023.
A grand jury indicted Marquette for murder on Jan. 4, 2024. The four officers appealed their punishments to the Personnel Board as allowed under city employment rules.
The rules require the Personnel Board to hold appeal hearings so the employees can fight the terminations and suspension. The officers could get their jobs back and back pay if they win their appeals.
However, the Marquette criminal case is continuing before Morgan County Circuit Court Judge Charles Elliott Jr. The judge held a hearing this week on Marquette's effort to dismiss the charges based on stand-your-ground immunity. Elliott had not made a ruling as of Thursday afternoon.
The trial is scheduled for April 7 if not dismissed.
Elliott issued a gag order in March 2024 that bars the prosecutors, the defendant and attorneys from any extrajudicial communication or release of information about the case.
The Personnel Board has ordered three six-month delays of the hearings as it waits on a resolution of the criminal trial.
Lehr recommended to the board that it continue the hearings until Elliott's gag order "is either rescinded or modified, so the hearings could proceed."
"Our assessment is neither the city nor the police officers could effectively present their case," Lehr said.
Board member Darius Crayton said this means the board would have to wait until after the trial, and Lehr said, "That is correct, but it (the gag order) could be modified."
Board member Pam Werstler pointed out that the April 7 trial date could be delayed again.
Board President Harold Gilmore asked Lehr how the gag order impacts the Personnel Board's plan to hold appeals hearings for the officers.
Lehr said the gag order has "such a broad scope that it would be limiting in terms of what the testimony could be."
But Gilmore said the Personnel Board's "position is what they're doing across the street (at the Morgan County Courthouse) is entirely different from what we're doing here. That's, I guess, where I get lost at. What they're doing over there — they're looking at a murder trial. We're looking at — they broke the (policies) of the city. I see it different from here and next door."
Lehr said there's an overlap in the trial and gag order with the Personnel Board's appeals hearing and the officers' employment, "which is the challenge. If the gag order were not so broad, then we could proceed."
Werstler said the board would be looking at what happened before the shooting occurred and if city and Police Department policies were broken.
"They're going to be looking at the whole thing; we're looking at this piece, but there's an overlap there," Werstler said. "And if everybody is under a gag order, they can't talk about an aspect of it. There's nobody who can testify.
Werstler said she knows "this is not the norm" to delay appeals hearings indefinitely. She said she doesn't want to continue delaying the hearings, but she doesn't see any way the board can hold them right now.
"This an anomaly," Werstler said. "We don't want to make a habit of it, but people can't testify on either side, and that's not fair to anybody."
Board member Nora Vanderploeg said the board would review the delay and the possibility of holding the hearings if Elliott modifies the gag order.
"Any change to it would cause us to meet that next month or sooner," Vanderploeg said.
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