ALBANY — On a Thursday in late April, three sergeants at the State Police Academy in Albany summoned a trooper recruit to their office. When the 34-year-old recruit arrived, they began peppering her with accusatory questions about allegations she had been concealing her use of an Apple Watch.
At the storied academy adjacent to State Police headquarters, where trooper recruits undergo a grueling 28 weeks of training in a paramilitary environment, the use of computer devices like cell phones, smart watches and other electronics is strictly regulated. But what unfolded next also raises questions about whether the core constitutional rights of State Police recruits are suspended or significantly reduced while they are under the watchful eye of their training academy leaders.
The recruit accused of concealing the watch, Daiana M. Doran, is a former Sullivan County sheriff’s deputy and U.S. Army National Guard service member who entered the academy with years of law enforcement experience. She told the sergeants that she had accidentally brought the watch to the academy on a Friday months earlier, around the ninth week of the training program, which began last November. But she told them she took the watch home that same day and had not brought it back to the academy since then, according to a notice of claim recently filed against the State Police on her behalf…