Originally published: . Volume 8, No. 7. Source pages: 2.
The recent decision by the 19th District Court Judge Michael Caldwell may be the most serious situation we’ve ever had.
The judgment from Caldwell and the strength of his views indicates that something is very wrong.
The mistakes that Judge Caldwell apparently found were not small missteps or some nuance of the law. These Constitutional violations were of basic laws and basic rights. So, we’re left to conclude that either the attorneys are incompetent, or these violations were intentional. Both of these are seriously disturbing possibilities.
We are in a situation now where we are not only paying for poor job performance, but we might also be paying for the attorneys to defend their poor performance.
Judge Caldwell’s ruling does not surprise me. In 2014 I began asking around and discovered a number of people who reported what seemed like over zealousness on the part of the investigations subcommittee: where small mistakes were viewed as major ethical violations; where the investigators went fishing; and where psychologists were threatened into career damaging agreements.
A common experience was feeling trapped, and in fact they were, since the law requires you cooperate with the board and if you do not, that is an ethical violation itself. And then there is the trap of another sort, the shame and the secrecy. One said, “You just can’t talk to anyone about it because everyone thinks you did something if you’re being investigated.”
So, it takes a certain sort of person, with a certain temperament type, probably eccentric, for a case to end up in front of a District Judge who says, “I don’t care what he did or didn’t do,” the process “reeks” of Constitutional violations.
The group norms of the attorneys seem to have filtered into psychologists’ norms at the board.
I have had numerous run-ins with the board over transparency. For example, I’ve been denied the infamous letter about the impact of Act 251 four or five times. I’ve been told, “There are no records that fit your request.” Tom Hannie was told, “Its attorney-client privilege” when he asked where the board got the idea that the Governor couldn’t appoint a substitute. There are many examples and some even humorous.
But things seemed to have become more serious when a potentially self-serving issue emerged. During 2013 to 2015, the attorneys either did not know of the one-year time limit for investigations in the psychology law, or chose to ignore it. When legally challenged by one psychologist the board dropped the case, on the advice of the attorneys. Then Mr. Lunceford suggested an executive session, and the topic became secret.
The investigations subcommittee’s mistake on time-limits was never clarified openly, but a case on the issue waits, and waits some more, in District Court.
And, last November the board said in a public meeting that it would only be making an administrative rule change, but then sprung a piece of legislation on the community this March, after a meeting with their attorneys. The legislation would wipe out the one-year limit on investigations and authorize thousands of dollars in fees to be charged to those dealing with the subcommittee.
Fifteen years ago our board was doing okay, or okay as this type of thing gets, with psychologists rather than wall-to-wall attorneys. Maybe it’s the influence of politics, or a lack of senior leadership, or the fragmentation of the identity and values of the psychology community that have taken a toll.
Maybe it’s the larger social system. For sure, Senator Fred Mills, who put forth a measure for dramatically changing this exact thing, said he heard of rampant violations across all the boards. (The rumor is that the boards actually killed Mills’ efforts.)
The skyrocketing costs at the LSBEP should have tipped us off. Currently, the deficit at the board comes to about $100 per licensee, but if this issue of violations holds, and it looks like it will, that figure could go much higher.
All this exists in a low base rate environment where the risk of a false positive is much higher than the risk of a false negative.
I understand organizational guilt. The “I can’t fire my friend syndrome” is hard. Denial is comforting– “Judge Caldwell just doesn’t see the full picture. We’ll appeal.” And there is the feeling of sunk costs.
But I don’t see any other way to take back our culture. Bring experienced, wise psychologists back and say goodbye to all the attorneys.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.