Judge sides with review board over police union

For the second time in a month, an Allegheny County judge on Tuesday sided with the Pittsburgh Citizen Police Review Board in a dispute between the board and the city police union.

Common Pleas Judge Terrence O’Brien indicated he would order Officer Joseph Lippert to comply with the board’s subpoena and testify at a public hearing about his conduct during a 2015 traffic stop.

The judge’s comments echo an order issued in May by Common Pleas Judge John McVay Jr. In a separate case, Judge McVay ordered three officers to

comply with CPRB subpoenas.

All four officers have refused to testify as the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 1 challenges the board’s authority to force officers to testify in its investigations.

In both cases, the courts have sided with the Citizen Police Review Board and said officers must honor the board’s subpoenas. Judge McVay and Judge O’Brien each referred to a 2003 case in Commonwealth Court that upheld the board’s power to issue subpoenas.

“The Commonwealth Court has said the board can subpoena witnesses, right?” Judge O’Brien asked FOP attorney Chris Cimballa on Tuesday. “Is the commonwealth wrong? Even if I thought it was wrong, wouldn’t I be bound by it?”

In both cases, Mr. Cimballa argued that the CPRB could not subpoena the officers because it is an agent of the city of Pittsburgh — and an agreement between the city and union forbids the city from forcing officers to cooperate with the board.

He also argued that if the CPRB is, in fact, independent from the city, then it no longer has subpoena power because that power comes from the city’s authority.

William Ward, the CPRB attorney, countered that the board’s subpoena power has been clearly established through court decisions and precedent.

Mr. Cimballa is appealing the May decision from Judge McVay, and has not ruled out an appeal in Officer Lippert’s case.

Officer Lippert is accused of bungling the investigation of a traffic crash on Aug. 3, 2015, by failing to record witness information, incorrectly reporting the crash as a rear-end collision, putting the wrong time and date on a report and incorrectly assigning blame for the crash to a taxi driver.

He was subpoenaed to appear at a public hearing before the CPRB in March but refused.