It is hard to argue that you didn’t know how to follow the law when that was how you made your living.

Attorneys for Michael Diebold did just that. Luckily, it didn’t work.

Armstrong County Judge James J. Panchik sentenced the former Leechburg police chief to 18 to 36 months in prison for failing to register as a sex offender. It was the latest in a revolving door of courtroom appearances for Diebold since his 2018 arrest for soliciting sex from a state trooper posing as a 14-year-old girl.

The sentence in that original case was nine to 23 months followed by three years of probation and a requirement to register as a sex offender. He didn’t register, leading to the new case filed in 2020. He entered a plea to those charges in October 2021. Oh, there was also the arrest in 2019 in which he violated the terms of his release, including sending a woman inappropriate photos.

How many times does someone have to have the rules spelled out before they make sense? How many times before someone who enforced the law realizes he is also subject to it?

“I owe a huge apology to everyone, including this court, all my friends in law enforcement who probably feel a little betrayed and shame because of my actions, and especially my friends, family and community,” he said in a teary statement as he begged the judge to allow him to serve out those jailed months on house arrest.

The problem is Diebold has yet to show he understands how to follow the terms of a judge’s order. Registering as a sex offender is not difficult. Humiliating? Probably. But it is easier than going to prison, so one would think it would have built-in motivation.

Not sending women inappropriate pictures is incredibly easy. Millions of people are able to do that every day.

Perhaps the easiest of all is simply not soliciting sex online from someone you believe to be a minor.

All of these were too challenging for Diebold, despite the fact that for years he was responsible for enforcing the law on people who committed crimes, violated the terms of their sentences and committed new crimes.

It may seem to some Diebold is being held to a higher standard than a typical offender or allowances are not being made for the pain he suffered after a 2017 fireworks accident that resulted in the loss of part of his left arm and caused other medical problems.

But this was the third time Diebold has stood accused since then. If this were a baseball game, he would have used up all of his strikes.

Still, defense attorney Dan Joseph uttered the mystifying words, “No one has been hurt,” in arguing for leniency. Doubtless Diebold’s family has experienced pain because of this situation, to say nothing of the hurt to his community.

Panchik made the right call in sending Diebold to jail before anyone else is hurt.

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