Missouri's Public Safety department this week renewed its effort to revoke Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon's peace officer's license.
The department had revoked Dixon's certificate last January, but Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem blocked the action after Dixon appealed to the court system and, last month, Beetem ruled the state made too many procedural mistakes to revoke the license without holding new hearings.
A new hearing schedule could be set during a telephone conference call Tuesday morning, involving the attorneys and the state's Administrative Hearing Commission (AHC), where the challenge to the license must be filed.
In a three-page "Motion for Partial Summary Decision," Assistant Attorney General Darryl Hylton reminded the AHC that state law "establishes" the Public Safety director's "authority to discipline a peace officer's license, including discipline for committing a criminal offense."
Then the motion reminds the AHC Dixon pleaded guilty last year to "harassment, admitting he committed said criminal offense."
Hylton asked the commission to conclude the guilty plea is an undisputed fact, so "there is no genuine issue that (Dixon) committed a criminal offense and is subject to discipline" under state law.
On July 1, 2014, Dixon pleaded guilty to one count of harassment in an appearance before now-retired St. Louis County Circuit Judge Richard C. Bresnahan, who had been assigned as a special judge in the case. The Public Safety department launched its first disciplinary effort 22 days after Dixon made the guilty plea in Bresnahan's Clayton courtroom.
The plea to the misdemeanor charge was based on a plea agreement offered by Special Prosecutor John Beger, of Rolla, who then was the Phelps County prosecutor, and now is a circuit judge.
Based on a Highway Patrol investigation and probable cause statement, Beger originally had charged Dixon with taking a four-wheel vehicle on June 26, 2013 - even as the owner told him not to - and with four misdemeanor counts, including harassment, stalking and first-degree sexual misconduct or, in the alternative, third-degree assault.
As part of the plea agreement, Beger dropped the felony and three of the misdemeanor charges during the 2014 hearing.
But, Beger told reporters outside the St. Louis County Courthouse after the 10-minute hearing: "In pleading guilty, (Dixon) entered a plea to the conduct that was alleged in the other charges."
After accepting the plea agreement, Bresnahan placed Dixon on probation, with conditions that included:
• Submitting to drug and alcohol testing at any time.
• Having no contact with either of the victims in the case, whether directly or through a third party.
• Never mentioning either victim's name publicly, privately or online.
• Never denying or retracting his guilty plea in any public, private or online conversation.
• Taking sexual harassment counseling.
Dixon's lawyers said during Beetem's July 1 hearing on the challenge to the license revocation that the sheriff was following his probation restrictions - with one exception.
Part of his appeal was based on challenging some of the plea agreement findings, which the state argued was a violation of the restriction against "denying or retracting his guilty plea in any public, private or online conversation."
And Beetem's Oct. 1 order canceling the initial license revocation mentioned that issue several times.
In a footnote, Beetem wrote he didn't have to decide if "Dixon violated his plea agreement."
But, he added, if either the Public Safety department or the AHC "wish to consider (the plea agreement) as some form of estoppel ... the Court would then be bound to consider whether or not" there is any legal consequence if Dixon had been told no one would go after his peace officer's license if he pleaded guilty under the agreement.
If Dixon had pleaded guilty to a felony charge, his license would be gone - state law prohibits felons from serving as a sheriff.
But a misdemeanor still is a crime, and the POST law also allows the Public Safety director "to discipline any peace officer licensee who ... has committed any criminal offense."
As part of the 2014 plea agreement, Dixon - who was Belle city marshal before taking over the Osage County sheriff's job on Jan. 1, 2013 - admitted to being involved in actions with a Belle city deputy identified in court records only as C.M., including making "repeated phone calls to C.M., as well as repeated comments of a suggestive or sexual nature and touching or striking her genital area with a flashlight."
The department's new motion was accompanied by a "Statement of Uncontroverted Material Facts" that noted those details were part of the July 1, 2014, guilty plea.
But, Beetem noted in his 29-page ruling last month: "At the (department's) Disciplinary Hearing (last December), testimony was provided by (two sheriff's deputies) who were both present on the nights when the incidents alleged in the Plea Agreement occurred.
"(Those two officers), along with Dixon, all provided testimony casting doubt as to whether Dixon committed any criminal conduct. Dixon's opportunity to submit this testimony (to the AHC) should not be short-circuited by the deficient pleading filed by the Department."
In addition, Beetem ruled, the Public Safety department and the AHC made several procedural errors that violated the Missouri Administrative Procedures Act which, taken together, generally denied Dixon his right to a fair hearing.
Among those findings was the AHC's granting the cause determination for the license revocation as a "result of a motion for summary decision" - the same motion the department filed this week to renew the disciplinary process.
Beetem also found the Administrative Hearing Commission relied on information in the Patrol's 2013 probable cause statement to support its finding the department had cause to revoke Dixon's license.
But, Beetem said "the Probable Cause Statement consists entirely of hearsay," and didn't provide the "competent, substantial evidence" required to support the cause finding.
Beetem's ruling last month generally endorsed arguments Dixon's attorneys made during both the July 1 oral arguments in Beetem's courtroom and 61/2 months earlier, before the department's POST disciplinary hearing, that resulted in the decision to revoke Dixon's license.
Dixon is in his first, four-year term as Osage County sheriff.
The job is on next year's August primary and November general elections ballots, with filing to be held from late-February until late March.