Rhino
07-12-2006, 10:02 AM
Judges Risk Notoriety When Handing Down Creative Sentences
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
By Sara Bonisteel
America's judiciary is getting creative when it comes to setting an example.
In Texas, a man who slapped his wife was ordered to attend yoga classes. In Michigan, a woman who claimed to be a Hurricane Katrina victim so that she could get free rent was ordered to clean houses.
The sentences may sound ludicrous or inspired, depending on your point of view, but this much is certain: Judges across the country are quietly instituting new ways to combat the old problem of having criminals serve meaningful sentences.
Occasionally, these judges make national headlines when their attempts to impose justice meet public backlash, as they did last month when Nebraska judge Kristine Cecava sentenced a convicted sex offender to probation and electronic monitoring rather than send the 5-foot-1-inch, mentally impaired man to prison. Cecava said she feared for the sex offender's personal safety in jail.
Public ire is part of the double-whammy dilemma facing any judge who dares to deviate from the norm, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.
"If they get creative and seem like they're being too lenient, you'll get usually people on the right saying, 'Oh my God, you sent this offender to a reading club? Well God, I wish I had time for a reading club,'" he said. "If you try punishments that are unusually harsh or distinctive, then you typically get folks on the left or the ACLU complaining you can't do that."
So arbiters of justice like Ingham County, Mich., Circuit Judge Beverley Nettles-Nickerson make headlines when they hand down an offbeat sentence, as she did June 28 when she ordered Kim Horn to clean the house in Mason, Mich., to which she fled after claiming to be a Hurricane Katrina evacuee.
"Anything creative risks not only garnering attention, but garnering criticism just because it's different, even if it might make a lot of sense," Berman said.
And these judges can very quickly feel the wrath of an angry public. In particular, outcry turns to furor when the cases deal with sexual predators. Whereas treatment used to be the prescribed choice for sex offenders, judges now opt for tough sentences, rather than face a public that doesn't want offenders in their backyards, near their children or at their business.
"The thought of a sex offender, especially a child sex offender, is so repugnant to the public that it is very politically popular to be very tough on sex offenses right now," said Aya Gruber, an associate law professor at Florida International University in Miami.
But not every judge follows that route.
In January, Vermont Judge Edward Cashman came under fire for giving convicted child molester Mark Hulett 60 days of jail time in order to get prompt treatment. Cashman's sentence became fodder for national pundits, and in February the judge upped Hulett's sentence to three to 10 years in prison.........http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203042,00.html
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
By Sara Bonisteel
America's judiciary is getting creative when it comes to setting an example.
In Texas, a man who slapped his wife was ordered to attend yoga classes. In Michigan, a woman who claimed to be a Hurricane Katrina victim so that she could get free rent was ordered to clean houses.
The sentences may sound ludicrous or inspired, depending on your point of view, but this much is certain: Judges across the country are quietly instituting new ways to combat the old problem of having criminals serve meaningful sentences.
Occasionally, these judges make national headlines when their attempts to impose justice meet public backlash, as they did last month when Nebraska judge Kristine Cecava sentenced a convicted sex offender to probation and electronic monitoring rather than send the 5-foot-1-inch, mentally impaired man to prison. Cecava said she feared for the sex offender's personal safety in jail.
Public ire is part of the double-whammy dilemma facing any judge who dares to deviate from the norm, said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.
"If they get creative and seem like they're being too lenient, you'll get usually people on the right saying, 'Oh my God, you sent this offender to a reading club? Well God, I wish I had time for a reading club,'" he said. "If you try punishments that are unusually harsh or distinctive, then you typically get folks on the left or the ACLU complaining you can't do that."
So arbiters of justice like Ingham County, Mich., Circuit Judge Beverley Nettles-Nickerson make headlines when they hand down an offbeat sentence, as she did June 28 when she ordered Kim Horn to clean the house in Mason, Mich., to which she fled after claiming to be a Hurricane Katrina evacuee.
"Anything creative risks not only garnering attention, but garnering criticism just because it's different, even if it might make a lot of sense," Berman said.
And these judges can very quickly feel the wrath of an angry public. In particular, outcry turns to furor when the cases deal with sexual predators. Whereas treatment used to be the prescribed choice for sex offenders, judges now opt for tough sentences, rather than face a public that doesn't want offenders in their backyards, near their children or at their business.
"The thought of a sex offender, especially a child sex offender, is so repugnant to the public that it is very politically popular to be very tough on sex offenses right now," said Aya Gruber, an associate law professor at Florida International University in Miami.
But not every judge follows that route.
In January, Vermont Judge Edward Cashman came under fire for giving convicted child molester Mark Hulett 60 days of jail time in order to get prompt treatment. Cashman's sentence became fodder for national pundits, and in February the judge upped Hulett's sentence to three to 10 years in prison.........http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203042,00.html