An El Paso County judge is considering a request to reduce a former Fort Carson soldier’s eight-year prison sentence for drunkenly shooting a friend in the hand based on whether he is receiving adequate mental health care in prison.
Reports that former Staff Sgt. Cory Griffin’s mental health has further unraveled while in prison could rise to the level of an “extraordinary” circumstance meriting a sentence reduction, 4th Judicial District Judge Lin Billings-Vela said at the conclusion of a hearing Thursday.
Billings-Vela said she will issue a written decision within 30 days.
The announcement added fuel to a nearly three-year effort to find a treatment-based prison alternative for Griffin, a two-time combat veteran who reports he was directly hit by roadside bombs three times in 2009 while patrolling Sadr City, Iraq, in an armored vehicle. He later served in Afghanistan and left the Army with traumatic brain injury and PTSD.
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