Clark County Attorney William Elkins has filed a motion to intervene in the case Winchester Police Officer Travis Thompson filed against the City of Winchester to determine if he could serve as an officer and magistrate.

Elkins filed a motion last week to be added as a party to the case between Thompson and the city.

After sending three letters in consecutive months to the Winchester Police Department claiming Thompson was not authorized to be a peace officer in Kentucky after being sworn as a county magistrate, Elkins wants to join the case.

Elkins dated the first of three letters Jan. 11, 2019, two days after Magistrate and Winchester Police officer Travis Thompson’s first fiscal court meeting.

“… I am giving notice here that I hold the firm opinion that the two offices are incompatible,” Elkins wrote to Winchester Police Chief Kevin Palmer.

Kentucky law prohibits one person from holding a municipal office and a county office at the same time. The Kentucky Attorney General’s office issued an opinion earlier this year, as did attorneys for the Kentucky League of Cities and the City of Winchester, that being a police officer does not constitute holding a city office and working as a city police officer is not incompatible with serving as a county magistrate.

Elkins, a former Winchester Police officer himself, cited a 1970 Kentucky Supreme Court case which determined a police officer is a municipal office of indeterminate term.

A 2017 Kentucky Attorney General opinion affirmed municipal and county offices are incompatible, but does not question the 1970 ruling, he said.

He also said he believes the two positions are “functionally incompatible” if the positions are “inherently inconsistent.”

“One example of inconsistency or repugnancy would be a city police officer’s ability to press as a matter of county policy, as County Magistrate, that the Office of County Attorney not be supported by county funding,” Elkins wrote in the Jan. 11 letter. “This county and the City of Winchester are involved in a number of other financial endeavors where a city officer could, perhaps would not, but could shift governmental burdens to the county while being loyal to his municipality to whom he also swore an oath of faithfulness.”

The first letter was dated two days after Thompson’s first meeting as magistrate.

Clark County Treasurer Jerry Madden said the fiscal court pays salaries to Elkins and his staff based on work they perform for the county as well as rent for office space. The county pays nothing for the operations of the county attorney’s office, he said.

The letters, which were filed in connection with a case in Clark Circuit Court between Thompson and the city, express Elkins’ belief Thompson’s oath of office as magistrate vacates or voids the oath he took when he was hired by the Winchester Police Department in August 2018.

“I am not suggesting that this disrupts the police officer’s employment,” Elkins wrote to Palmer in a Feb. 26 letter. “It does, however, negate his ‘peace officer’ powers with the earlier oath being vacated. The agency may continue his employment without such peace officer power.”

Later in that letter, Elkins said his staff would help Thompson obtain criminal complaints “like every other person” to prosecute cases “without exercising uncertain peace officer powers.”

He also offered that Thompson re-take his oath to be an officer.

Elkins said last week he dismissed some of Thompson’s cases and continued others until June until he was presented with a legally-binding opinion stating the positions of police officer and magistrate were not incompatible. He also said Thompson had never requested to file a complaint.

Thompson was placed on desk duty at the police department beginning March 4.

Friday, Clark Circuit Judge Brandy Oliver Brown issued a temporary restraining order calling the city to put Thompson back on duty with full police powers. Brown also upheld the attorney general’s opinion that the positions are not incompatible and that it be “honored and followed by all elected officials” until Brown makes further determinations.

The case is now on Brown’s April 18 docket.