Fired deputy under pressure
Judge says arbitrator erred
COURTS | Bruce Rushton
A Sangamon County judge has signaled that he won’t let stand the decision of an arbitrator who ordered a county sheriff’s deputy reinstated after she pleaded guilty to shoplifting and stood trial for stealing plants.
Sherry Waldron was fired in 2012 after a surveillance camera captured her taking potted plants from a Sherman park and putting them into her patrol vehicle. She was acquitted of theft charges in 2013, but was caught stealing groceries from a Schnucks supermarket less than six weeks after her trial and pleaded guilty to shoplifting charges. Waldron appealed her dismissal, and the case went to arbitrator Dennis McGilligan, who ruled in March that she should be reinstated with back pay. The county went to court to overturn McGilligan’s decision.
Now, Sangamon County judge John Madonia has questioned whether McGilligan made the right call and all but ruled that he will either send the case back to McGilligan or order arbitration proceedings to begin anew with a different arbitrator.
During an Oct. 15 hearing, Madonia questioned whether McGilligan should have ruled on whether the shoplifting incident merited Waldron’s dismissal. The county had cited the shoplifting case during arbitration proceedings so that McGilligan could assess Waldron’s credibility when she testified that she thought the plants had been abandoned when she took them. But the county argues that deciding whether shoplifting alone was enough to fire Waldron requires a separate proceeding and that McGilligan went beyond his authority when he ruled that Waldron should keep her job despite pleading guilty to stealing groceries.
Madonia, during a second hearing two weeks later, said that McGilligan applied the wrong standard of proof in the plant case. The judge said that the standard of proof should have been preponderance of the evidence, meaning that the county need only show that there was better than a 50 percent chance that Waldron stole the plants. Instead, McGilligan decided the county needed to present “clear and convincing” evidence, a higher threshold that lies somewhere between preponderance of the evidence and proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard in a criminal case.
While Madonia has not issued a formal ruling, he made clear on Oct. 30 that McGilligan’s decision should be tossed out and re-evaluated, either by McGilligan or a different arbitrator.
“Clearly, in the eyes of the court, he applied the wrong standard as to the plants,” Madonia said. “This court just thinks that was wrong. … In the end, I see the court vacating that order.”
The question now, Madonia said, is whether the case should be sent back to McGilligan or arbitration proceedings should start fresh with a new arbitrator. But the case could be settled before an arbitrator gets another crack at it.
Prior to arbitration, Waldron had offered to resign if she was given back pay to cover the year that passed between her 2012 termination and the 2013 grocery theft. Dwayne Gab, Sangamon County assistant state’s attorney, wouldn’t comment on whether that would be an acceptable resolution, but he said that the county is open to settlement talks. Sheriff’s officials have said that Waldron is so tainted by the plant incident and shoplifting case that she could not testify in court and so has no value as a deputy.
Gab and state’s attorney John Milhiser said that the county would not make a deal that involves reinstatement.
“Any settlement would involve her agreeing not to be a deputy anymore, and frankly, in law enforcement anywhere,” Milhiser said.
If Waldron were called to testify in a criminal case, a defense attorney could bring up the shoplifting case and the plant incident to undermine her credibility, according to Jon Gray Noll, a Springfield criminal defense attorney.
“She would be considered damaged goods,” Noll said.
James Daniels, Waldron’s attorney, declined comment.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com
