N.Y. Town Law § 155: Discipline and charges

§ 155. Discipline and charges. Except as otherwise provided by law, a

member of such police department shall continue in office unless

suspended or dismissed in the manner hereinafter provided. The town

board shall have the power and authority to adopt and make rules and

regulations for the examination, hearing, investigation and

determination of charges, made or preferred against any member or

members of such police department. Except as otherwise provided by law,

no member or members of such police department shall be fined,

reprimanded, removed or dismissed until written charges shall have been

examined, heard and investigated in such manner or by such procedure,

practice, examination and investigation as the board, by rules and

regulations from time to time, may prescribe. Such charges shall not be

brought more than sixty days after the time when the facts upon which

such charges are based are known to the town board. Any member of such

police department at the time of the hearing or trial of such charges

shall have the right to a public hearing and trial and to be represented

by counsel; no person who shall have preferred such charges or any part

of the same shall sit as judge upon such hearing or trial. Witnesses

upon the trial of such charges shall testify thereto under oath. No

member of such department who shall have been dismissed shall be

reinstated unless he shall, within twelve months of his dismissal, file

with such board a written application for a rehearing of the charges

upon which he was dismissed. Such board shall have the power to rehear

such charges and, in its discretion, may reinstate a member of the force

after he has filed such written application therefor.

Any member of such department found guilty upon charges, after five

days' notice and an opportunity to be heard in his defense, of neglect

or dereliction in the performance of official duty, or of violation of

rules or regulations or disobedience, or of incompetency to perform

official duty, or of an act of delinquency seriously affecting his

general character or fitness for office, may be punished by the town

board having jurisdiction, by reprimand, by forfeiture and withholding

of salary or compensation for a specified time not exceeding twenty

days, by extra tours or hours of duty during a specified period not

exceeding twenty days, by suspension from duty for a specified time not

exceeding twenty days and the withholding of salary or compensation

during such suspension, or by dismissal from the department.

Notwithstanding chapters one hundred four and five hundred twenty-four

of the laws of nineteen hundred thirty-six, such board shall have the

power to suspend, without pay, pending the trial of charges, any member

of such police department in accordance with subdivision three of

section seventy-five of the civil service law. If any member of such

police department so suspended shall not be convicted of the charges so

preferred, he shall be entitled to full pay from the date of suspension.

The conviction of a member of such police department by the town board

shall be subject to review by the supreme court in the judicial district

in which such town is located in the manner provided by article

seventy-eight of the civil practice law and rules, provided that the

proceeding is commenced within thirty days from the determination of

such conviction by the town board.