New Smith resentencing set Oct. 12

T.J. Smith

A former Putnam County deputy convicted of two counts of police brutality will face a second resentencing hearing in October.

Terry Joe T.J. Smith is set to appear before Chief Judge Jane Magnus Stinson on Thursday, Oct. 12. The 3 p.m. hearing will take place at the U.S. Courthouse in Indianapolis.

Smith's trial and other previous hearings took place in Terre Haute before Judge William T. Lawrence.

However, the Seventh District Court of Appeals has twice rejected what it deemed a "light sentence" imposed by Lawrence. When resentencing was again ordered in June, the court applied Circuit Rule 36, which calls for a new judge.

Federal court guidelines called for an advisory sentencing range of 33 to 41 months. However, during the first sentencing hearing in December 2014, Lawrence sentenced Smith to 14 months.

The former deputy and Greencastle city councilman was released after serving less than a year.

In the first resentencing hearing in April 2016, Lawrence chose not to modify his original sentence, instead only attempting to clarify his reasoning for the original sentence.

In June, Justices Richard A. Posner, Ann Claire Williams and Ilana Rovner confirmed that they were not satisfied with this action.

Written by Rovner, the June decision again called into question the reasoning for Lawrence's 14-month sentence, particularly after the higher court remanded it the first time.

Rovner pointed to the advisory sentencing range for such crimes and questioned why Smith received little more than a year. She noted that Lawrence gave no indication of his thinking.

"If there is a rationale to support a sentence that is less than half the low end of the guidelines," Rovner wrote, "it is not apparent in the record here."

Smith was first charged in March 2014 with four counts of deprivation of civil rights under color of law for incidents of alleged police brutality.

In September of that year, a jury found Smith guilty on two of four counts.