photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

John Price is pictured at a preliminary hearing on May 23, 2024, in Douglas County District Court.

A Lawrence man who has frequently been disruptive and at times violent in court and in jail was sentenced to two additional years in prison on Friday for spitting in a correctional officer’s mouth.

The man, John Timothy Price, 36, was convicted of one felony count of battery on a law enforcement officer after a one-day trial in May. The charge relates to an incident on Sept. 17, 2022, when Price while in custody at the Douglas County Jail spat in an officer’s mouth during an altercation, as the Journal-World reported.

Judge Stacey Donovan sentenced Price to 24 months in prison on Friday after granting a durational departure from the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines. She said that with Price’s extensive criminal history, he could have been sentenced to over 10 years in prison for the incident.

Donovan said she sentenced Price to less prison time because in the three trials she has presided over for Price she has seen several mental health reports and observed herself that Price tends to act out when he is under a great deal of stress.

Price’s attorney, Razmi Tahirkheli, had asked Donovan to also consider that if Price had done the same thing to a civilian, it would likely have been a misdemeanor charge.

“The (10-year) sentence is not proportional to his conduct,” Tahirkheli said.

Tahirkheli said that Price is still facing another charge of battery on a law enforcement officer, which is set for trial in March 2025, and that if convicted he faces another 10 years in prison. He said that in both cases, the officers involved were not injured.

“I have had murder cases where the defendant got less,” Tahirkheli said.

Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald objected to any reduction of Price’s sentence because Price had “earned his criminal history” and had shown numerous times that he was a threat to society.

Greenwald noted that when Price was free he had thrown brick pavers into drivers’ windshields while they were passing by, threw bricks through business windows and attacked his arresting officers.

Greenwald said that the punishment in the state law is severe because it is a deterrent intended to protect officers.

Price spoke briefly and said that he did not spit in the officer’s mouth and that the officer had previously harassed him while he was in jail.

“We had a tumultuous relationship; this man had antagonized me for months,” Price said.

Donovan said that she agreed with Greenwald that the statute about battery on a law enforcement officer is reasonable and that just because they work in the jail, officers shouldn’t be abused, but that Price has already been sentenced to several years in prison in connection with his prior convictions and has additional cases still pending. She ordered the two-year sentence to run consecutively to those previous cases.

Price was sentenced to five years in prison in May of 2023 for incidents that happened in September of 2021 when he smashed multiple windshields of passing drivers and windows of businesses. His two trials in one week in December 2022 for those incidents were mired in outbursts when he cursed at the judge, put his hands on his attorney and fought with court security.

Price was eventually fitted with a “stun cuff” on his leg that a court security officer could use to deliver an electric shock to Price if he started acting out.

Price is scheduled for trial on March 10, 2025, in front of Judge Amy Hanley. He is charged with one felony count of aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer for attacking a Douglas County sheriff’s deputy during his December 2022 trial, as the Journal-World reported.