Three charges, one admission, and an appeals board that looked the other way
A fired Mississippi state trooper won reinstatement - then lost it because the appeals board skipped the one charge he admitted to.
The Mississippi Court of Appeals on October 20, 2026, reversed the Employee Appeals Board’s decision to reinstate the trooper, finding its analysis arbitrary for failing to address an admitted disciplinary violation.
The Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS) had terminated the trooper from the Highway Safety Patrol over three incidents spanning 2010 to 2018, each a Group III offense under state personnel rules - the category that authorizes termination.
The first, from 2010, involved an alleged assault. According to DPS’s charges, the trooper “pushed his way into the home and brutally assaulted” a man. He denied it, testifying no punches were thrown.
The second, in 2017, involved what DPS called “an inappropriate relationship with a fellow trooper’s wife.” The trooper was transferred and pulled from SWAT. The fellow trooper testified the relationship was physical. The trooper said it was emotional - but admitted telling colleagues otherwise. Asked whether he was admitting conducting that violated a DPS order: “Admitted it from day one.”
The third, in 2018, followed a restraining order on allegations the trooper had been “physically and verbally abusive” toward his then-wife. He told the board she had been “influenced to lie under oath.”
DPS terminated him, citing “an unacceptable and troubling pattern of behavior that is unbecoming of a law enforcement officer.”
The appeals board reversed, finding the trooper “believable” and that he had “rebutted the agency presumption and established that his termination was not justified.” It credited his denials on the 2010 and 2018 incidents, noting the “time gap from 2010 to 2018 hardly fits into a troubling pattern.”
The circuit court affirmed. DPS appealed.
The Court of Appeals agreed the board was within its rights on the first and third charges. But the 2017 affair was different. The trooper had admitted to the conduct. Three witnesses testified. Yet the board never analyzed whether that behavior independently justified termination.
Under the employee handbook, once the admission took the “not true” defense off the table, the board had to assess whether the conduct was “sufficient grounds for the action taken.” It never did.
The court held the decision arbitrary, reversed, and remanded.
For HR teams running multi-count disciplinary actions: every independent ground for termination needs its own finding in the record. Skip one, and even a well-supported decision can come apart on review.
The matter has been remanded to the Employee Appeals Board and is not yet finally resolved.
