Rhode Island State Trooper Brendan Doyle, with his mother by his side, listens to closing arguments in Superior Court Monday.

The Providence Journal Frieda Squires

PROVIDENCE — The jury continued its deliberations on Tuesday in the trial of James D. Proulx, who admits he punched off-duty state police Trooper Brendan R. Doyle last June. The Superior Court jury must decide if it was an act of self-defense or a brutal, unjustified attack.

The jury of seven women and five men jury deliberated for about four hours Monday after hearing closing arguments. They resumed Tuesday morning.

Proulx is facing one count each of felony assault and reckless driving. Doyle was critically hurt in the incident. His skull was fractured when he fell and his doctor testified that he had thought the trooper could die. But after what the doctor, Deus Cielo, called a “miraculous” recovery, Doyle returned to duty with the state police.

The incident began shortly after closing time for the downtown bars, around 2 a.m. June 17, when Doyle and six friends had left McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon on Pine Street. Proulx testified that he was speeding in his black BMW convertible and fishtailed through a left turn onto Pine Street from Peck Street. His car nearly struck one of the people in Doyle’s group and the trooper ran after the car. Proulx cut through a parking lot to try to beat a red light and turned left onto Dorrance, but he was stopped by traffic. Then Doyle reached his car.

In his closing argument, defense lawyer William C. Dimitri said Proulx had acted in self-defense.

Dimitri said that while Doyle told Proulx he was a state trooper he did not show a badge. He said Doyle never asked for a license or registration and began reaching into Proulx’s car, grabbing his arms. He said Proulx, a former state correctional officer and the brother of a Smithfield police officer, doubted Doyle was a trooper. He said Proulx punched Doyle once to stop what he saw as an attack.

“State troopers don’t act that way,” Dimitri said more than once during his summation, “That’s why he [Proulx] didn’t believe him.”

He portrayed Doyle’s behavior as the end result of a night out with friends, pointing to medical evidence that Doyle’s blood-alcohol level was 0.167, twice the legal limit for drunken driving.

“He became another drunk ego on a Friday night and that’s what happened,” Dimitri said.

Dimitri also told the jury that the most specific witnesses against his client were either friends of Doyle who were trying to help their friend — who has no memory of the night — or a police officer walking “the thin blue line. He’s going to protect a fellow officer.”

Prosecutor James R. Baum said Proulx’s self-defense claim was a game and the jury shouldn’t play it. He cited witnesses who said Doyle and Proulx grappled at the car, one of Doyle’s friends pulled him away and then Proulx drove on through the intersection.

He said Proulx’s driving through the intersection — Proulx denied doing it — was crucial because it meant he had escaped any possible threat he might have felt before and, therefore, couldn’t claim self-defense. Instead of fleeing, as a genuinely frightened victim of an attack would, he said Proulx turned, got out of his car, and punched Doyle.

During his summation, Baum played a tape recording of a message Proulx had left on an ex-girlfriend’s cell phone minutes after the incident, accusing her of sending three men after him and saying, “I give them the beating of their [expletive] life.”

Baum said those weren’t the words of a man who had just escaped a fearful situation.

He also said that after the confrontation, Proulx drove down Dorrance Street, past an oncoming police officer. Had Proulx truly feared for his safety, Baum said, he would have stopped and talked to that police officer instead of driving past him, turning the wrong way down Friendship Street and leaving.

jhill@projo.com