Judge hits pause on former trooper Piercy's case

Deputy Solicitor Peter Reed, right, speaks to Judge Pat Joyce Friday while he stands next to attorney Timothy Van Ronzelen, representing former Trooper Anthony Piercy, during a hearing in which the state asked Joyce to amend her original order telling the Highway Patrol to re-instate Piercy to his job.
Deputy Solicitor Peter Reed, right, speaks to Judge Pat Joyce Friday while he stands next to attorney Timothy Van Ronzelen, representing former Trooper Anthony Piercy, during a hearing in which the state asked Joyce to amend her original order telling the Highway Patrol to re-instate Piercy to his job.

Everyone legally involved in whether a former Missouri Highway Patrol trooper gets his job back will have to wait for a ruling from the state's court of appeals, after a Cole County judge ruled Friday to stay most of her previous ruling on whether the leader of the patrol had the authority to fire the trooper.

Cole County Presiding Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ruled in June that Highway Patrol Superintendent Col. Sandra Karsten overstepped her authority last year when she fired Trooper Anthony Piercy.

Piercy was a veteran road trooper and a cross-trained water trooper who pleaded guilty in June 2017 to a misdemeanor charge of negligent operation of a vessel on the Lake of the Ozarks on May 31, 2014, when he had stopped Brandon Ellingson, 19, of Clive, Iowa for suspected boating while intoxicated.

Piercy arrested Ellingson, placed him in handcuffs and put on him on the incorrect type of personal flotation device needed to save Ellingson from drowning if he were to enter the water while cuffed - which he did.

Piercy failed to save Ellingson's life when he jumped in after the young man, who was ejected, fell or jumped out of the trooper's boat on the way back to the patrol zone office to complete tests required for a boating while intoxicated charge.

A coroner's jury determined after an inquest in Morgan County that no crime had been committed, and the patrol was told in a September 2014 letter that no charges were being filed.

The case later was reopened, and Piercy was charged in December 2015 with involuntary manslaughter - a Class C felony. That charge was amended to the misdemanor charge when Piercy pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail with execution of the sentence suspended.

Piercy was placed on two years of supervised probation. A six-member Highway Patrol Review Board then considered Piercy's case and determined last December that his conduct had violated the patrol's "general orders." However, the board unanimously recommended that Piercy be reinstated to active duty but transferred from Troop F to another part of the state.

Karsten fired Piercy four days after the review board's determination, having issued her own "Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law."

Joyce's order in June sent the case back to the patrol "to allow the superintendent to decide what discipline to impose among the lesser disciplines" outlined in state law, Joyce said. She ruled in favor of Piercy's argument that state law doesn't allow the superintendent to impose a discipline greater than what the Review Board recommended.

The director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety revoked Piercy's peace officer's license in July, however, so the state had asked Joyce to amend or stay her order that would have allowed Piercy to get his job back because he can't legally work as a trooper without his peace officer's license.

Piercy's lawyer, Tim Van Ronzelen, of Jefferson City, appealed the license revocation last week and is asking the assigned judge, Cole County Judge Dan Green, to grant a stay of the revocation.

Meanwhile, the Highway Patrol's appeal of Joyce's ruling in June is pending, so Joyce ruled Friday to stay her order on the first four claims that will go on appeal of the five-count challenge of Piercy against Karsten's actions.

The Highway Patrol was represented at Friday's hearing by Deputy Solicitor Peter Reed.

The unaffected fifth count in Piercy's lawsuit asks the circuit court to order the patrol to pay Piercy his back wages and benefits.