Robert Devine, the former deputy police chief in Stoughton, who was stripped of his law enforcement certification in December because of misconduct related to Sandra Birchmore’s homicide case, is appealing the revocation, court documents filed Tuesday show.
The state’s police oversight board’s decision was a “rubberstamp” of “a clearly slanted report due to nothing more than public pressure,” Devine wrote in a complaint seeking judicial review.
“The decision does not provide clear and convincing evidence sufficient to decertify Robert Devine as a police officer,” the 25-page complaint filed in Suffolk Superior Court said.
Court records show Devine, who is now a lawyer, is representing himself.
The Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission voted in December to decertify Devine, permanently barring him from serving as a police officer in the state.
The commission found that Devine had engaged in a pattern of unprofessional conduct.
Birchmore’s 2021 death became the focus of a federal homicide investigation.
In its 30-page ruling, the commission said Devine met Birchmore when she was a middle school student participating in the Stoughton Police Explorers Program and that he leveraged his position of power over her to develop a sexual relationship.
Birchmore, 23, was found dead in her Canton apartment in February 2021. Her death was initially ruled a suicide, but former Stoughton police officer Matthew Farwell has since been charged in federal court with killing her.
Devine’s appeal alleges that he was denied his due process rights, and that his revocation was unlawful and based on hearsay and unsupported evidence.
Devine argued that he could not “rebut the allegations [Birchmore] allegedly made” because “she is dead.”
And to prove a “pattern of conduct,” the commission must show a minimum of three separate incidents with “distinct theories,” the complaint said.
“There is at best two events,” Devine wrote, “which are not similar.”
The commission “disregarded settled case law and even their own public regulations, as well as entered evidence not presented at hearing in its final decision, in order to rubberstamp a clearly slanted report due to nothing more than public pressure,” Devine’s complaint said.
No dates to hear the appeal have been scheduled, according to online court records.
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