VOLUSIA EXPOSED

VOLUSIA EXPOSED.COM

Is Volusia County Department of Corrections violating Florida Statutes regarding how they conduct misconduct investigations on law enforcement and correctional officers?

Is Volusia County's refusal to follow Florida law on how to properly conduct these misconduct investigations, directly connected to all the recently exposed corruption within the Volusia County Department of Public Protection?

Updated
December 19, 2011

Corruption is authority plus monopoly minus transparency. - Unknown author

Recently, the Volusia County Department of Public Protection, though their Corrections Division (County Jail), completed two misconduct investigations on two of their correctional officers.

Both Officers, Edward Goddell and Joshua Smith, were investigated for engaging in unprofessional relationships with female inmates, a violation of Florida moral character standards, as maintained by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

We invite you to read the documents attached to both of these officers' investigations.

In Florida, when a law enforcement or correctional officer is suspected of having engaged in misconduct (as defined above, in FAC 11B-27), the officer's employing agency MUST conduct an internal investigation to determine if the misconduct can be sustained (F.S. 943.1395(5)).

Florida Statutes also states that in order for a law enforcement or correctional agency to be able to conduct these internal misconduct / moral character investigations, the agency must first establish and put into operation a system to receipt, investigate and make a determination of complaints received against officers. (F.S. 112.533)

VolusiaExposed.Com recently published an article outlining our suspicions that the Volusia County Corrections Division was not in compliance with F.S. 112.533(1).

Florida Statutes 112.531 to 112.535 are commonly referred to as "The Florida Officer Bill of Rights". These statutes not only mandate that law enforcement and correctional agencies establish a system to receipt and investigate misconduct complaints on their officers, but they also define certain mandated investigative techniques and time limitations on these type of investigations.

VolusiaExposed.Com has recently published an article questioning whether Volusia County officials have violated Florida law by NOT timely releasing records to the public, attached to law enforcement / correctional officers' misconduct investigations.

However, now, after receiving the county's internal affairs files on the Goddell and Smith matters, VolusiaExposed.Com believes that the county has and is violating these officers rights to due process, as guaranteed by Florida Statutes.

Florida law requires that all interrogations of subject officers be audio recorded. Florida law also requires that all statements taken from the subject officer be under oath. However, there is clear evidence that Officer Goddell's and Smith's interviews / interrogations were NOT audio recorded, nor were their statements taken under oath. Clear violations of Florida Statutes.

We invite you, our readers, to review our December 16, 2011 email to Director Coffin, in which we present a detailed account of our concerns.

VolusiaExposed.Com questions how Volusia County intends to hold these officers to Florida State mandated moral character standards, when the investigations they (county officials) conduct do not comply with the requirements of Florida Statutes (as outlined above).

How can we expect our law enforcement leaders to enforce our laws, if our leaders, themselves are ignoring the laws of Florida?

Does all of this give better insight on why the Volusia County Department of Public Protection has so many past and on-going corruption problems? We invite you to review our main page to review the corruption that we are referring to.