Feds Say Message is Needed With Sentencing of Santa Barbara Jail Deputy

Federal prosecutor Bruce Riordan says a year behind bars sends a crucial message to former Santa Barbara sheriff’s deputy, Christopher Johnson, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in September by a federal jury after he falsified report to his superior that failed to mention the fact that his partner, custody deputy Robert Kirsch, had kneed and kicked a handcuffed jail inmate, causing injury, after the man had already been slammed to the floor.

According to the prosecution, after a verbal conflict, Johnson used force to take handcuffed inmate, Charles Owens, to the ground and then held him down while his co-defendant “repeatedly struck” Owens with his leg and knee. “As conclusively demonstrated by the trial exhibits, at one point during the beating, defendant intentionally used his bulk to turn the defenseless and handcuffed Victim onto his side to allow his co-defendant to deliver a blow to the Victim’s midsection.”

The jury agreed with the prosecution that Johnson “prepared an incomplete and misleading incident report and safety cell report in order to cover-up the beating that he and his co-defendant had just inflicted…”

The same jury acquitted Johnson and his partner of deprivation of rights under color of law in the form of the alleged assault.

“The criminal justice system depends on the integrity and accountability of sworn law enforcement officers,” wrote federal prosecutors Bruce Riordan, and Michael Azat, in a sentencing recommendation sent to Judge Beverly Reid O’Connell. “Custodial deputies, like all law enforcement officers, must report accurately on their use of force incidents or the criminal justice system will be tarnished. Sworn personnel are not entitled to manipulate the truth for their own purposes as the defendant tried to do in 2013 – and as he continues to try to do today.”

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MULTIPLE CHARGES, MULTIPLE TRIALS, AND 2 TERMINATIONS

The route to Johnson’s conviction and his upcoming sentencing on January 11 was a slightly complicated one.

In August of 2013, the two former Santa Barbara County sheriff’s custody deputies, Johnson and Kirsch, were each charged by the Santa Barbara District Attorney’s Office with the alleged June 2013 beating of a handcuffed jail inmate, who was at the time awaiting trial.

The original complaint leading to the charges was brought to the SB DA by a local public defender the day after the alleged assault.

Then in April 2014, rather than going ahead to trial on its own, the local DA’s office reportedly asked the FBI and the US Attorney’s office to take the case. The feds agreed to step in and, in short order, a federal grand jury indicted to two deputies for the beating, charging a violation of the inmate’s rights. Prosecutors also asked for and got the additional charge of obstruction of justice against Johnson for allegedly lying on his report about his partner’s kicking and kneeing of inmate Owens.

(For the record, the inmate, Charles Owens, was charged with the murder of 25-year-old Lompoc resident Michael Jason Spradling, and in a separate case, faced multiple charges of sexual assault involving his ex-girlfriend. He has since been convicted of the consolidated cases, and sentenced to life without parole.)

To make matters slightly more interesting, prior to the feds stepping in, the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department conducted its own internal investigation into the two deputies’ actions, which resulted in deputies Kirsch and Johnson being terminated from the SBSD on March 7, 2014 and March 19, 2014, respectively.

Fast forward to 2015, when the case against the two deputies went to trial. There were two trials, actually, and the outcomes were mixed. The first trial occurred in the summer of 2015 and resulted in a mistrial, with a 9-3 hung jury.

Trial two concluded in September 2015. This time the jury acquitted the deputies of the assault and rights violation charges, but found Johnson guilty of obstruction of justice for falsifying his post incident report by omitting any reference to the use of force against inmate Owens.

Much of both trials, reportedly, hinged on a video, which captured a part of the incident in question but was shot at a slow frame rate from a single camera mounted 40 feet down a hallway from where the jail incident took place, and 12 feet off the ground. Thus while some kind of force was reportedly visible, after less than a day of deliberations, the jurors did not find the force to be illegal.

The jurors did, find that Johnson had obstructed justice by failing to mention any of the use of force by him and his partner when he wrote his report.

While the prosecutors thought that Johnson, as a first time offender with an otherwise good work record and strong family ties, should receive a lower term than the 15 to 21 months delineated in federal sentencing guidelines, Riordan felt some prison time is needed to “reflect the seriousness of the offense,” and “to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct.”

In other words, a message must be sent.

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