Posted on 04/18/2003 10:12:48 AM PDT by Cagey
Judge Jacqueline Schellinger hasn't been seen in the courthouse for five months, but her rulings - particularly the quirkier ones - will not soon be forgotten.
It's not every judge who will demand that a drug dealer be banned from sitting in the front seat of a car while on probation - not to mention a slew of other conditions that either make no sense or couldn't possibly be accomplished in a 24-hour day.
No wonder conservative appellate judges keep sending Schellinger's cases back to the courthouse for a second try.
Schellinger, who has been on sick leave since early December and isn't expected to return any time soon, had only one word to say to us about her latest reversal.
"Goodbye," she said, just before hanging up.
Last fall, we wrote up a couple of Schellinger specials, including one in which a felon was ordered to perform so many tasks that the higher court questioned whether any person, let alone an addict, could possibly comply.
The latest Schellinger sentence that was flipped involves a heroin addict/small-time dealer named Erica Prokop, 28, who was busted for selling cocaine to an undercover cop, the latest in a series of arrests dating back to her teen years. The judge gave her two years behind bars, five years of probation and yanked her driver's license for five years.
Nothing unusual about that. What was bizarre were the conditions Schellinger attached to Prokop's probation.
"You may never even sit in the front seat (of a car), not to play the radio, not to turn the key on to keep the car warm," Schellinger said from the bench nearly two years ago. "If you're ever found in the front seat of a vehicle before you are a licensed and insured driver, you are to be returned to prison to serve that other five years."
Schellinger didn't stop there.
"So it is not just about putting your foot on the gas pedal. It's just (you sit) in the front seat, and you get revoked," the judge said, according to a transcript of the sentencing. "There will be no excuse, like an emergency - call the police, call an ambulance, do whatever you have to do, you stay out of the front seat of cars."
Just so there was no doubt in the mind of the defendant, who was bawling at the time, Schellinger emphasized: "As I said before, you can't ride on anything that doesn't have a (back) seat - no motorcycles, no Corvettes. (If it) doesn't have a back seat, you're not in it."
The public defender who filed the appeal for Prokop is still shaking his head.
"That one was just goofy, you know," said Michael Gould, who guessed that Schellinger went ballistic about where Prokop sits in a car because that's where her ill-fated drug deal went down. "What are you trying to do?"
We tried to get a comment from a prosecutor to the judge's unorthodox sentence, but all we got was non-stop laughter.
And we didn't even tell them the rest of the story.
Schellinger also required that Prokop get prior approval from her probation agent before anyone - even kids - visits her home. Prokop was barred from working with children, and she must attend domestic violence counseling.
Her offense, while serious, had nothing to do with children or beating someone up.
"Usually, we expect the conditions to relate to the crime," grumbled one probation officer.
Schellinger also ordered Prokop to attend drug counseling at least five days a week - and left the door open to increasing it to seven, go to parenting education classes, get vocational training and, of course, land a job.
Again, everything here is noble, but the appeals court said enough is enough.
"The sheer number of hours required to fulfill the conditions render compliance virtually impossible," the three-judge panel said in its March 26 ruling. It added, "The purpose of extended supervision conditions should be rehabilitation, not guaranteed failure and re-incarceration."
As for the requirement that the defendant steer clear of riding shotgun, the three judges couldn't figure that out, despite their decades of experience on the bench:
"Finally, we fail to see how the prohibition against riding in the front seat of a vehicle furthers Prokop's rehabilitation."
As he told it, his dad insisted that he and his dad exchange places behind the wheel. They accomplished this quickly and no one outside the car even noticed.
Insurance rates went up, but not as much as they would have if the 17 year old had been driving.
Preventing this is exactly what the judge had in mind.
Probably not much at all. The authors seem to have it in for this judge as they've wrote some uncomplimentary pieces about her before. One where she slapped a $300 contempt fine on a juror for rolling her eyes at her. It seems they don't like judges who think.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.