RALEIGH - A state administrative law judge today called for reinstatement with back pay for a Highway Patrol trooper who was videotaped kicking his dog while it was suspended from a deck.

Judge Fred Morrison concluded that state officials short-circuited disciplinary procedures in firing Charles Jones over his treatment of the dog. Gov. Mike Easley's office "decided and ordained" that Jones should be fired without giving him a chance to explain himself, Morrison said.

Morrison also called on the state to stop using dogs for law enforcement unless the state purchases dogs that already are trained and assigns them only to troopers who also are fully trained. In such cases, he said, the state also should give the troopers specific written compliance techniques for dealing with the dogs.

The judge's ruling goes to the State Personnel Commission, which will make the final decision on Jones' dismissal.

Lt. Everett Clendenin, a spokesman for the Patrol, said the agency will likely contest the judge's ruling. Crime Control and Public Safety Secretary Bryan Beatty still believes Jones should have been fired.

"Secretary Beatty has said that he believes that the agency made the right decision to dismiss Jones, and we're standing behind that decision," Clendenin said.

The Highway Patrol fired Jones in September, a month after another trooper used a cell phone to record footage of Jones suspending his dog, Ricoh, from a railing, then kicking him at least five times.

The patrol initially wrote up Jones for a personal conduct violation which could have resulted in a written warning and/or three days suspension without pay. But Jones was fired after Easley's press office became involved in the wake of news reports of misconduct by other troopers.

Jones insisted that what he did was not abusive and that Highway Patrol trainers had used several other rough methods on police dogs. He said he was trying to get the dog to release a piece of fire hose that he had been given as a reward for finding drugs during a training exercise.

Ricoh, a 7-year-old Belgian Malinois, was not seriously hurt. He has since been retired from the patrol.

Morrison said the state failed to show it had just cause for firing Jones. He said the trooper was making "a good faith effort" to train the dog, and he noted that the Patrol had no approved or disapproved compliance techniques for training dogs.

"Tough handling was customary," Morrison wrote. "Having been taught 'when your dog is not performing, bust his ass,' handlers used whatever methods worked with their dogs, including: choke collars, stun guns, sticks, cans filled with rocks, Alpha Rolls, windmilling, helicoptering, tying-off, tethering, lifting-up."

Morrison made it clear, however, that he did not approve of the patrol's lack of approved techniques for dog-training.

"People have loved dogs from time immemorial," he wrote. "Jesus spoke of them in His conversation with a Canaanite woman in the region of Tyre and Sidon. I cherish my companionship with our three-year-old Golden Retriever, Counselor. He has followed in the paw prints of Talitha, Natasha, P. D., Rocky II, Rocky I, Cassie, Spitzi, and many strays which have blessed my days since childhood."

Morrison said he had those pets in mind when he made his recommendation about the state's use of dogs for law enforcement.

The video of Jones and the dog as well as testimony during an administrative hearing led Beatty, the crime control secretary, to suspend the Patrol's K-9 program. Clendenin said the program is under review to look for methods and policies that need to be improved.

"We feel confident that the Highway Patrol in the near future will have a K-9 program once again," Clendenin said.

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