Ex-Erie police corporal gets 30 days to year in jail for domestic violence; sentence in high range

A former Erie police corporal has lost his freedom as well as his career for his conviction for repeatedly striking his wife in the face and biting her in the face during a domestic dispute in February.

Justin W. Griffith, who had been on the police force since 2008 and resigned after he was found guilty at trial in November, was sentenced to 30 days to a year in the Erie County Prison on Monday.

The sentence was in the aggravated range of the state sentencing guidelines, which consider the crime as well as a defendant's background and other factors.

A sentence in the standard range would have allowed for probation for Griffith, who was convicted of simple assault as a third-degree misdemeanor and the summary charge of harassment. The defense wanted a sentence of court costs only, while the Erie County District Attorney's Office asked for a sentence in the standard range.

Erie County Judge Daniel Brabender said the circumstances of the case, including the injuries to Griffith's wife, Dawn Griffith, prompted him to go into the aggravated range, or high range.

Brabender commended Justin Griffith, 40, for his public service, including four years in the Marines fighting in Afghanistan before he joined the Erie police force. But Brabender said that service did not offset what Griffith did to his wife at the Griffiths' house in Millcreek Township around 1:25 a.m. on Feb. 13, while Justin Griffith was off duty.

"I think you are a good guy," Brabender told Griffith, "but you have to pay the piper."

Brabender held up a photo of the bloodied, bruised and swollen face of Griffith's wife — a photo that the jury saw at trial — and said that the injuries were not the result of "one slap," as the defense contended. Brabender said a sentence of only court costs "would defeat the ends of justice."

Conviction: Erie police corporal convicted of assaulting wife, faces loss of job; wife at odds with DA

Wife continues to defend husband

Griffith's conviction for the third-degree misdemeanor carried a maximum sentence of a year in prison. Brabender made Griffith eligible for parole after he serves the minimum sentence of 30 days. Brabender sentenced Griffith to between one day to 90 days on the summary charge, but made that sentence concurrent to the sentence for the simple assault count.

Griffith's eyes teared up as he left the courtroom in handcuffs. He looked toward his wife, who was seated in the gallery. Moments earlier, she had testified at the sentencing hearing that she caused the fight that led to her injuries — the same account she gave when she testified at her husband's trial.

"I took it out on my husband that day, and it should have never happened," Dawn Griffith, 45, told Brabender. "I am sorry for what I did. If it wasn't for me, we wouldn't be here."

Dawn Griffith said that her husband assaulted her because she had struck him after finding out that he had been unfaithful. Undisputed trial testimony showed that Dawn Griffith called 911 in response to her husband striking her. Millcreek police arrived and charged Justin Griffith based on his wife's injuries and her statements.

Dawn Griffith criticized the media coverage of the case and said she and her husband are "regular people" who should be treated no differently because her husband was a police officer.

"I just want our lives back," she said.

Griffith addresses judge

Brabender said that Justin Griffith's trial was hard for him to hear, and that he has presided over numerous murder and rape trials since he took the bench 12 years ago.

"This is one of the most difficult cases that I have had to sit through," Brabender told Justin Griffith. "I felt very sad."

"It is still difficult for me to listen to Dawn blame herself here," Brabender also said. "It makes me very sad."

Justin Griffith, who spoke after his wife, told Brabender that he should have walked away from the dispute in February.

"I take responsibility for that night," he said. "I take responsibility for my actions."

The comments were the most Justin Griffith had made in the case in court. At his two-day trial, which ended with the guilty verdict on Nov. 12, Justin Griffith did not testify and the defense called no witnesses.

But his lawyer, John Carlson, told the jury of eight women and four men that Griffith admitted that he struck his wife with an open hand on the left side of the face, which, according to photographs presented in court, caused her face to swell and her lip to bleed.

Carlson argued that Griffith acted in self-defense. He said Dawn Griffith had been hitting and kicking her husband — including in the crotch — in a fight over him cheating on her and over him taking her cellphone right before the fight. Both had been drinking, according to evidence presented in court.

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The self-defense theory fit with Dawn Griffith's trial testimony, in which she diverged from what she initially told the police and instead said that she was the aggressor during the fight and that her husband did nothing wrong.

In his closing argument at trial, Carlson also suggested that Dawn Griffith — to get back at her husband in a possible divorce — could have hurt herself to make her injuries look worse in the photos that were entered into evidence.

A case with 'two versions'

In court on Monday, Carlson told Brabender that the Griffiths have been in counseling to repair their marriage. He asked Brabender to consider that Justin Griffith had already suffered due to his loss of his job and the media coverage of the case.

During the domestic dispute, Carlson said, Justin Griffith showed "a lack of judgment" and "things just erupted."

Justin Griffith "has been punished immensely outside of this courtroom," Carlson said.

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The assistant district attorney who handled the case, Hillary Hoffman, told Griffith that the loss of his job and the public scrutiny "were direct consequences of the choices you made as an individual."

Hoffman said the District Attorney's Office treated the case no differently than other domestic violence cases. She also said the case continued to have "two versions" — the version that the jury believed, based on the evidence, and Dawn Griffith's version that she was to blame.

The jury' verdict, Hoffman said, showed that "no one else in the community consents to that behavior."

The conviction all but guaranteed that Griffith would lose his job on the Erie police force. Federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm — a requirement for a police officer — by anyone convicted of a misdemeanor charge related to domestic violence.

Griffith ended his career on the force voluntarily when he resigned on Nov. 23 from his $88,681-a-year job as a corporal. Mayor Joe Schember and Police Chief Dan Spizarny promoted him from patrolman to corporal in 2018.

Griffith had been suspended without pay since the domestic violence case against him was held for trial at his preliminary hearing in March.

Resignation: Erie police corporal resigns following conviction in domestic violence case; sentencing next

Question of a 'higher standard'

The domestic violence case represented the second time Griffith went on trial in an assault case in Erie County Common Pleas Court. A jury in 2017 acquitted him of a misdemeanor simple assault charge that, while on duty, he kicked a handcuffed and prone suspect during an October 2016 arrest at an apartment in Erie.

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In court on Monday, Carlson, Griffith's lawyer, emphasized that Griffith had been found not guilty in the previous case, and that he had received two letters of commendation for his work on the police force. Carlson focused on Griffith's dedication to the force.

Before sentencing Griffith, Brabender said Griffith's role as a police officer did mean that he was "held to a higher standard."

After the sentencing, Hoffman, the prosecutor, said the case showed that "domestic violence does not discriminate" in terms of someone's profession or other factors.

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Commenting on her office's approach, Hoffman said the Griffith case also shows that, even if a woman forgives a man in a case of domestic violence, such forgiveness "will no longer negate his criminal culpability."

Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNpalattella.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Ex-Erie police corporal sentenced to prison in domestic violence case