New Jersey officers accused of violence, sexual misconduct and more have walked free in deals that dodge a tough sentencing law. Now lawmakers want to eliminate it. When New Jersey lawmakers sought advice about police accountability, one of the power players they turned to was Sean Lavin, a police union leader. Lavin testified before state senators at a July hearing, where he questioned whether civilians are qualified to serve on police oversight boards, and suggested that chokeholds might sometimes be warranted. He also argued against releasing the names of officers who have been disciplined. “It’s a public shaming to their families,” said Lavin, executive director of the New Jersey Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council. “I don’t see the value in that, and I don’t think there is one.” But Lavin’s own history illustrates something else. A state law enacted more than a decade ago to jail criminal officers and other public officials who abuse their authority hasn’t worked as intended. Lavin is one of dozens of New Jersey officers who have been criminally charged with official misconduct but avoided the jail time called for under the law, an investigation by the Asbury Park Press and ProPublica has found. Lavin was indicted in 2014 when he worked as a Mercer County sheriff’s officer. The indictment accused him of using pepper spray on a handcuffed woman, filing a false report about the encounter and encouraging other officers to fake their reports, too. The charges included three counts of second-degree official misconduct, which is reserved for public employees who are accused of criminally misusing their position. A conviction on each charge should come with mandatory jail time — up to five years with no parole, in this case — according to state law. But Lavin received no jail time, no probation, no criminal record. In exchange for his resignation from the force, in October 2015 he entered a “pretrial intervention” program ordinarily reserved for low-level crimes. It wiped the charges from his record.
via propublica: How Criminal Cops Often Avoid Jail