Judge wants ex-cop to be cautionary tale

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

A former western Pennsylvania police officer convicted of violating a man’s rights by using a stun gun on him three times while he was handcuffed must teach law-enforcement officers about the evils of excessive force as part of her sentence.

Nicole Murphy, 31, was sentenced Friday to three years of probation. She’ll wear an electronic ankle bracelet and not be allowed to leave her home for the first three months, and then only for work or to perform some of her court-ordered community-service lectures for the next nine months.

Murphy was working in the tiny Pittsburgh suburb of Millvale when she stunned Thomas Jason James Smith three times after his public-drunkenness arrest in September 2012.

A 52-second cellphone video taken by another officer and leaked to the media by a third showed Murphy calling Smith a “retard” and other officers laughing during the ordeal. It also prompted the FBI investigation that led to Murphy’s conviction in November.

U.S. District Judge Arthur Schwab rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Murphy deserved between 27 and 33 months in prison under federal guidelines that consider a person’s criminal record — Murphy had none — and the seriousness of the crime.

Schwab said Murphy will still be punished, lecturing other officers about her experiences.

“If the defendant were sentenced to prison, she’d be essentially out of sight and out of mind to the law-enforcement community,” Schwab said.

Prosecutors declined to comment after the sentencing, and U.S. Attorney David Hickton said he hadn’t had enough time to study the sentence to comment or decide whether the office will appeal.

Hickton commented after a news conference on a new Justice Department initiative to train police in six cities, including Pittsburgh. The program is designed to bridge distrust between officers and the communities they serve in the wake of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and other areas where police shootings or use of force have been questioned.

Schwab acknowledged Murphy’s crime added to “a culture of distrust between citizens and officers” and was a “sober reminder of the dangers of police abuse.”

That’s why Murphy must spend 300 hours while on probation lecturing police on the subject — even though she’s denied using excessive force.

Defense attorney Phil DiLucente said Murphy was “humbled” and “relieved” by the sentence, but stopped short of saying she acknowledged wrongdoing.

“She was convicted by a jury of her peers who found she used excessive force,” DiLucente said.

Murphy acknowledged repeatedly stunning Smith after he was handcuffed, but argued at trial she was merely trying to stop Smith from banging his head on a desk and office cubicle. But prosecutors noted in a written argument asking Schwab to impose a prison sentence that Murphy filed official reports claiming she stunned Smith because he was combative and spat on her partner, which that officer — the one who shot the video — denied.

“Trial evidence established that the defendant knew better, the defendant was clearly trained better, and that she exhibited her knowledge and willfulness by purposely minimizing and covering up her use of force in the various reports she prepared thereafter,” Bloch wrote.