Jackson Police Department v. Lawrence

PRATHER, Justice,

for the Court:

In 1986, Sergeant Randy Lawrence and Officer Royce Pennington were the subject of a Jackson Police Department Internal Affairs Investigation. The investigation led to their being suspended without pay.1 *85Specifically, Lawrence and Pennington were found guilty of uttering sexually-oriented remarks to another police officer about one of their female colleagues; the remarks were found by Internal Affairs to be “untrue, obscene, lewd, repulsive, embarrassing, unprofessional and inexcusable.”

But the issue before this Court does not concern the merits of the decision…