Former Birmingham police officer to spend year in federal prison following re-sentencing
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Former Birmingham police detective Corey Hooper today was sentenced to serve a year and a day in federal prison for his 2012 conviction on an excessive force charge.
A federal appeals court earlier this year ruled the judge in that case didn't impose a tough enough sentence after Hooper was convicted of hitting a handcuffed man.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in May vacated the five-year probationary sentence and ordered U.S. District Court Judge Inge P. Johnson to re-sentence Hooper. "
*Hooper is to report to the designated prison on Dec. 1 to begin his sentence. She said she wants to give time to the prison system to find a prison that would be safe for a former police officer so he wouldn't have to be held in a jail while awaiting a space to open up. A jail would not be an appropriate place, she said.
With adding the extra day to the 12-month sentence, Hooper will be allowed to accrue good times, which would allow him to be released in about 10 months. The judge also said she would recommend the prison system place Hooper in a halfway house as soon as possible, which would allow him more freedom."
*Meadows said that the case is serious because a police officer was involved. He said Hooper deserved a punishment that would serve as a deterrent to other officers.
Meadows said he would have liked the new sentence to have been closer to the lower end of the guideline range (70 months). "A year and a day sends a message to other police officers that before they decide to haul off and hit a handcuffed suspect there are consequences to that kind of criminal behavior," he said."
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