Judge Rejects District’s Dismissal of Teacher

A judge on Friday rejected a bid by the Capistrano Unified School District to dismiss a high school teacher who was arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine but never charged or prosecuted.

David Murtaugh, an special-education teacher and coach at Aliso Niguel High School, will be reinstated with full pay within days under the judge’s ruling, said attorney C. Brent Scott, who represented him.

“From the beginning, he admitted his mistake and took all steps humanly possible to correct the mistake and complied with the law,” Scott said.

District officials said they were disappointed with the ruling by Orange County Superior Court Judge William F. McDonald.

“In this school district, we take the use of drugs and other unlawful substances very, very seriously, and we think this news sends the wrong kind of message to our children and youth as well as our other employees, parents and the community at large,” district spokeswoman Jacqueline Price said.

District officials suspended Murtaugh, 41, without pay in October after he was arrested by sheriff’s deputies on suspicion of possessing about a tenth of a gram of cocaine. Prosecutors declined to charge Murtaugh.

A commission on professional competence, made up of two special-education teachers from other school districts and an administrative law judge, later ruled that Murtaugh’s arrest did not merit his dismissal.

The commission said Murtaugh had learned a valuable lesson from the “disgrace, humiliation and the jeopardy in which he placed his career and family,” according to court papers.

The district contended Murtaugh was not responsible enough to discipline and teach students, and filed suit in May seeking to overturn the commission’s decision.