Miami’s former Police Chief is trying to get his job back through the court system. Read the full story here.

Exposito files appeal to get Miami police chief’s job back

By DAVID OVALLE
dovalle@MiamiHerald.com
Miguel Exposito, the ousted Miami police chief who was a lightning rod for controversy, won’t go away quietly.
On Tuesday, the former chief — who butted heads with Miami’s mayor, the county’s top prosecutor, city managers and politicians — asked a Miami-Dade judge to quash last month’s Miami City Commission decision to fire him, and restore him to his former post. The reason, the chief says: The commission took too long to fire him. By city charter, according to an appeal filed Tuesday in Miami-Dade circuit court, elected officials should have fired him within five days of his suspension by the city manager. Instead, the commission took six days.
“The five-day limit is both a protection of the Chief’s right to procedural due process and the public’s right to have the status of a suspended chief, the chief law enforcement officer (who also has national security duties), determined expeditiously in order to protect public safety,” his appeal says.
A divided city commission, by a vote of 3-2, ousted Exposito last month after a marathon two-day hearing. The city manager had suspended him days earlier, on Sept. 6, after he said Exposito disobeyed his orders not to demote three high-ranking staffers, and failed to curb excessive overtime costs.
The exhausting hearing began on the morning of Friday, Sept. 9, lasting until early the next morning. Commissioners recessed until Monday morning, Sept. 12, when, after four more hours of debate, Exposito was finally fired.
Exposito said in his appeal he should not have been fired because “the evidence presented against the Chief was neither substantial nor competent.”
This isn’t the first time Exposito has gone to court to try to keep his job. In the days before he was fired, Exposito asked a court to prevent a possible vote on his termination because two commissioners had already spoken out against him to the media.
The judge quickly tossed out his lawsuit. A court date for his latest appeal has not been set.
“The City has to abide by the laws of this country, and when they don’t do that they get slapped on the wrist, and I think that is what’s going to happen here,” Exposito told WSVN-7 Tuesday outside the civil courthouse.
© 2011 Miami Herald Media Company.
http://www.miamiherald.com