CITY OF SHREVEPORT v. SHREVEPORT MUNICIPAL FIRE AND POLICE CIVIL SERVICE BOARD (2024)

Writ application denied.

I would grant and docket the writ application filed by two civil service employees, Cpl. Robert Entrekin and Sgt. Anthony Sutis, and supported by the Shreveport Municipal Fire and Police Civil Service Board (the Board), to address the trial court's reversal of the Board's decision prohibiting the Shreveport Police and Fire Departments from compelling employees to submit to polygraph examinations during investigations. In my view, the use of polygraph examinations in civil service disciplinary proceedings is of sufficient magnitude to warrant this Court's scrutiny.

Louisiana provides due process protections to its civil service employees in disciplinary proceedings, yet regularly subjects those employees to mandatory polygraph examinations. When this Court held that polygraph results are per se inadmissible in criminal trials, it did so, in part, because “the polygraph technique is only capable of a high degree of accuracy when conducted under controlled conditions by an examiner who is highly qualified, and, in Louisiana, there are no laws providing for the licensing, regulating and disciplining of polygraph operators.” Evans v. DeRidder Mun. Fire, 2001-2466, p. 7 (La. 4/3/02), 815 So.2d 61 (citing State v. Catanese, 368 So.2d 975, 981–82 (La. 1979)). Since the accuracy of these examinations is somewhat dubious, I am likewise concerned about their use in the civil service employment context. Thus, because this issue merits this Court's examination, I would grant and docket the civil service employees’ writ application.

Crichton, J., would grant and docket and assigns reasons.