Tracy Sparpaglione - Conviction Overturned?

By WicBury Crapper Board Member "DasCrapper"...

An appellate court of Maryland recently overturned the conviction of former officer Tracy Sparpaglione, whom was arrested and prosecuted by the Wicomico County States Attorney office on several charges including sex offense charges, burglary and misconduct in office.

The balance of the charges were overturned and misconduct in office was originally upheld. This was recently overturned by the appellate court because the case had not proved or articulated in the charging documents a "malfeasance" in office.

So, Sbynews.com asked several questions of if this officer was to be reinstated or if there will be a civil case involved. Several persons commented that the States Attorney's office was responsible for the conviction being overturned and that others, such as the police department, should be held liable in his conviction.

Here's our take... Tracy was convicted on a charge which was overturned, not unlike many other persons who commit a crime for which they were arrested. There was more than enough probable cause to arrest Tracy which is all that a police officer or the state needs to charge someone with a crime, based on the witness testimony.

Further, Tracy violated departmental policy. It is clear that Tracy should have never returned to a residence that he had just arrested a suspect for and engage in a consensual sexual encounter with that person. To do so is plainly crazy and totally unethical on many different levels. The excuse that he needed to fill out an "arrest module" is absurd. A monkey could fill out the arrest module and the monkey could generalize the physical characteristics of the person, such as height and weight. So, clearly, Tracy should not be a police officer because his moral fiber, in our opinion, is totally flawed.

Someone also made the comment that many officers have had sex while on duty so why is this different. Frankly, cops shouldn't be engaging in sexual acts while on duty, even of on their break or "assignments". To do so is clearly a violation of the public trust. Having said that engaging in a sex act with your spouse or partner, although is still very unethical while working, is not engaging with a sex act on a girl that you just locked up therefore jeopardizing your job, the public trust, the criminal case in which you arrested her for, and making the entire department and all cops look stupid and silly.

Moreover, it is not the fault of the state's attorney's office in this matter. The state prosecutes cases that they feel are just and proper. It also loses cases many times but, that is not incumbent completely on the state. In this case, it is clear that the witness testimony was iffy at best and the court describes the witness are not entirely reliable (paraphrasing). Given the facts of the case the initial judge made a decision to convict on the charge of misconduct in office, even commenting on how disgusting it was.