Woman convicted of assaulting trooper gets four years

FARMINGTON – Defiant to the court’s final remarks, a New Sharon woman faces a significant prison sentence following Thursday’s sentencing hearing in Franklin County Superior Court.

Carol Murphy, 65, of 248 Lane Road, was sentenced to four years in a Department of Corrections’ facility for assault on an officer, a Class C felony. She was also sentenced to 30 days of incarceration, following a contempt hearing ordered by Justice Michaela Murphy in regards to the defendant’s behavior at Wednesday’s jury trial.

Murphy stands convicted of refusing to submit to arrest or detention, criminal use of an electronic weapon, and two counts of cruelty to animals, all Class D misdemeanors, in addition to assaulting Maine State Police Trooper Aaron Turcotte with a stungun when he held the door open for her as she left her house.

Turcotte had responded to the Murphy property on Oct. 14, 2009, after receiving information that Murphy had numerous pets in her house, which would be in violation of a lifetime ban on the possession of animals, and that a warrant for her arrest had been issued in regards to unpaid fines. After allowing her time to gather some things and lock up, Tucotte was attacked by Murphy, who was wielding a stungun.

“The law says if you have a bad warrant and you try to arrest me,” she says on a tape recording of the incident, which was played for the jury at Thursday’s trial, “then I can kill you.”

Maine Department of Agriculture’s Animal Welfare Program was asked to remove a number of animals from the home the next morning. Christine Fraser, a veterinarian with the AWP, testified that she and other personnel seized more than 40 animals, ranging from dogs and cats to birds to a miniature donkey and pot-bellied pig. Several farm animals, such as ducks, chickens and alpacas, were also found on the property.

The condition of two of these animals, an emaciated dog and the pig, directly prompted the two cruelty to animal charges. 

At the sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney James Andrews asked for a prison sentence approaching three years in duration, calling Murphy’s attack intentional, premeditated and unprovoked. Furthermore, Andrews argued, while Murphy had only the 2005 misdemeanor conviction on her criminal record, she had shown a disturbing trend of defiant behavior in regards to the legal system and law enforcement officers.

Turcotte addressed the court briefly, telling Justice Murphy that he was concerned about the next officer who interacted with Murphy.

“Is there going to be a next time?” he said.

Murphy, for her part, reiterated objections voiced repeatedly over the course of Thursday’s trial and other previous court appearances. She said that the Justice Murphy and the Franklin County Superior Court did not have “jurisdiction” over her, as she had filed a lawsuit of some kind in Boston. She continued to deny that she had even been convicted in 2005, due to “over 50 criminal violations” on the part of the state of Maine, and that the federal government would stop sending money, if this state violated her rights again.

In addition to a number of interruptions, Murphy addressed the court both during the sentence hearing and contempt proceeding. In both cases she delivered a lengthy, at-times rambling statement, in which she talked about the state’s “criminal acts,” the “illegal” nature of the custody hearing at which the state seized her animals, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (the organization which informed the state police that Murphy was housing animals again), which she termed as a “terrorist organization.”

Murphy also said that she did not want to kill Tucotte, but “could have shot him dead and walked away,” because he was a “front man” for AWP Director Norma Worley and the warrant was “no good.”

Justice Murphy cited this statement in her remarks, noting that the defendant had been smiling while Wednesday’s tape recording played through the attack on Tucotte.

“It’s very clear to the court,” Justice Murphy said, “that [Murphy] has absolutely no regrets for what she put him through.”

Justice Murphy commended Tucotte for his conduct throughout the incident, describing it as “exemplary” and saying the trooper had displayed nothing but “professionalism and decency” toward Murphy. Instead of responding in kind, Justice Murphy said, the defendant had attacked him in an “unprovoked and in a cold-blooded manner.” 

Justice Murphy also noted that Murphy had refused any standard forensic evaluation, but that she had been observed by the State Forensic Service for a 10-day period, at the order of the court. The conclusion of a report filed by Dr. Ann LeBlanc had been that Murphy appeared to suffer from “no significant delusions or psychological thinking.”

The court also rejected any possibility of probation, opting for a straight sentence due to Murphy’s past history with the legal system. Justice Murphy said that the defendant represented a “significant risk to public safety,” which factored into her decision to sentence Murphy to four years in prison. The maximum sentence allowable for a Class C felony is five years.

Murphy was also sentenced to nine months for each of the four Class D misdemeanor convictions, with those sentences to be served concurrently to the four-year sentence. Justice Murphy imposed another lifetime ban on Murphy possessing animals.

In the contempt hearing, which preceded sentencing, Justice Murphy said that the defendant’s conduct at Wednesday’s trail, which included not rising for judge or jury, interrupting and talking over witnesses and Andrews, referring to the proceedings repeatedly as a “racketeering” operation, and referring to Justice Murphy in a derogatory manner, constituted “actual and willful obstruction.”

Justice Murphy sentenced Murphy to 30 days in jail, the maximum sentence allowable under a Rule 66 contempt proceeding.