Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994                   TAG: 9403180131
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MICHAEL STOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUDGE RULES SHERIFF ERRED WHEN HE FIRED DEPUTIES

U.S. District Judge Jackson Kiser, in an opinion filed this week, awarded Ronald Hall $66,743 and Vernon Reynolds $44,412 in damages.

The decision wasn't surprising because just last month - in a decision attorneys hailed as precedent-setting - Kiser ruled that Roanoke County Circuit Court Clerk Steve McGraw acted illegally when he fired Marsha Conner, a deputy clerk who supported his election opponent.

Donald Huffman, who represented Hall, Reynolds and Conner, said Kiser's latest ruling serves further notice that employees can't be fired for political reasons.

Reynolds and Hall were dismissed shortly after Day defeated Spence and took office in 1992. They filed a civil suit alleging that Day had violated their civil rights by firing them because of their political ties to Spence.

Both Reynolds and Hall supported Spence's re-election bid by distributing campaign literature and writing letters to newspapers.

At the trial in December, Day admitted that while there may have been political considerations in his decision not to rehire the deputies, his decision ultimately was made for other reasons.

The sheriff claimed that Hall used vulgar language and made sexual remarks to female department employees, that Reynolds and Hall used improper tactics in their investigations, and that Reynolds and Hall were not loyal to his administration and could not be trusted to follow his orders.

In his written opinion, Kiser said Day's arguments were unpersuasive.

"I am particularly disturbed about Day's lack of specifics with regard to the events and circumstances which cause him to view the plaintiffs' on-the-job conduct unacceptable."

Hall is now a campus police officer at Virginia Military Institute, and Reynolds works at the Augusta County Correctional Unit.

Kiser did not order that the deputies be reinstated to the Sheriff's Office, because their working relationship with Day "would be strained, at best."

The ruling probably bodes well for two former Roanoke County sheriff's deputies who still have a case pending in U.S. District Court.

The deputies, who worked for Republican Sheriff Mike Kavanaugh, are claiming that Democrat Gerald Holt fired them for political reasons shortly after he ousted Kavanaugh in the 1991 election.