Christian Facer v. Department of the Air Force

MAYER, Circuit Judge,

dissenting.

Facer was caught and admitted to smoking marijuana during a half-hour lunch break from his duties as a mechanic on F-4 high performance aircraft (capable of Mach 2); he admits to prior uses of marijuana during breaks in his duties; he refuses drug counseling; he has a conviction for sale of LSD. He is untruthful: he exonerated a co-worker caught with him of any blame in the marijuana incident but, before the Board, changed his story to blame the co-worker for instigating the incident, providing the marijuana, and smoking with *544him. Notwithstanding that his exoneration dissuaded the agency from taking any action against the co-worker, Facer now complains about the disparity between his treatment and his co-worker’s. In these circumstances, the agency and the Board thought removal was an appropriate penalty. I would affirm,