BROCKTON - The district court clerk magistrate will rule by month’s end whether to let charges stand against Quincy Police Chief Robert Crowley and a patrolman he ordered ticketed for driving a police cruiser without a valid driver’s license.

The ruling by Clerk Magistrate Kevin P. Creedon will determine whether Crowley must defend himself against a criminal charge that he allowed patrol officer Michael J. O’Brien to drive despite knowing the officer’s license had expired six months earlier. The crime is punishable by up to a year in jail.

The citation issued to O’Brien carries a fine of up to $1,000.

The ticketing episode unfolded over three days in late August against the background of a feud between Crowley and the patrolmen’s union.

Sgt. Michael O’Shea testified at a hearing Friday that Crowley instructed him on Aug. 29, after learning O’Brien had an invalid license, to pull the officer over when he began his shift. O’Shea said he ticketed O’Brien, at Crowley’s instruction, for driving while unlicensed.

The next day, Quincy Police Patrol Officers Association president Bruce Tait cited Crowley for allowing the unlicensed officer to drive. He later upgraded it to a criminal charge when he learned that Melanie’s Law, an anti-drunken-driving law passed in 2005, made the offense more serious.

Richard Bardi, O’Shea’s attorney, argued that technically, O’Brien never broke the law because the parking lot where he was stopped is a police-only lot, and therefore not a ‘‘public way’’ as defined by the law.

William F. Sullivan, the lawyer hired by the city to represent Crowley, argued that the police chief didn’t permit O’Brien to drive. He said department regulations explicitly bar officers from driving without a valid license.

‘‘How many times does he have to say ‘no’?’’ Sullivan said.

O’Brien was suspended for five days without pay. He returned to duty after he cleared up an outstanding debt for either parking tickets or excise tax and renewed his license.

Bardi, O’Shea’s lawyer, called Crowley’s actions ‘‘shameful’’ and ‘‘an abuse of power,’’ suggesting that the police chief could have better handled the situation simply by instructing the officer to renew his license.

‘‘Instead he laid a trap, and it’s blowing up in his face,’’ Bardi said. ‘‘It was a black eye for the Quincy Police Department.’’

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