Posted on 01/05/2006 5:23:48 PM PST by wagglebee
BURLINGTON, January 5, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - According to a Vermont judge, serious crime should not be subject to punishment. “The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul.” So said Judge Edward Cashman who then gave a 60-day jail sentence to a man who raped a little girl repeatedly for four years starting when the girl – the child of a friend - was six and ending when she was ten.
Mark Hulett, 34, pleaded guilty in District Court in Burlington to two counts of aggravated sexual assault and one charge of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child, all felonies. The law allowed for him to face up to life in prison on the charges, but the judge decided that he should be let go after 60 days, since the state Corrections Department would not offer Hulett sex-offender counseling until after his release.
Only if Hulett fails to obtain counseling or otherwise follow instructions once he is freed
will he face the full sentence.
The state prosecutors, along with the girl’s family were seeking the maximum sentence of 8 to 20 years in a federal prison.
“Punishment is a valid purpose,” Chittenden Deputy Prosecutor Nicole Andreson argued. “This is not only about Mr. Hulett. To sentence him to any less demeans the level of trauma he has caused. To sentence him to any less will send a disturbing message of tolerance to the community.”
“The state recognizes that the court may not agree or subscribe to that method of sentencing but the state does. The state thinks that it is a very important factor for the court to consider,” Andreson added.
After ruling that the self-confessed child rapist should be back in the community, Cashman told the family, “This is not a situation where I'm doing this for the family”
“My heart goes out to this family, and I would hate to be in the situation this family is. But there's other families out there, and there's other people who could be victimized, and I'm trying to take the long view,” he said.
Cashman added that a lengthy prison term “will accomplish nothing but to harden this fellow.”
The girl’s mother, however, thought that keeping her child’s rapist off the streets would accomplish something. “Mark should be taken off the street so it is not possible for her to cross his path. She will see Mark enough in her mind,” she said.
Contacts:
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas
109 State Street, Pavilion
Montpelier, VT 05609-0101
Phone: 802 828-3333
(toll-free in VT only: 800 649-6825)
Fax: 802 828-3339
Online communications form at http://www.vermont.gov/governor/contact.html
Vermont Judicial Conduct Board
http://www.vermontjudiciary.org/Committes/boards/j...
Chairman Christopher Davis
802-864-0217
Sorry I missed it, but glad to hear this story is getting coverage.
I hope it gets a lot more coverage. Someone on the show made reference to the fact that "Vermont thinks it can just hide up in the corner of America, but the national spotlight is about to shine upon them". Sure hope so.
This isn't about anger, it's about JUSTICE, Judge.
BTW, incarceration has a dual deterrent effect. It stops the perpetrator from committing crimes and it stops others from committing crime as well.
Bombs AWAY. Anyone want to e-mail the kind judge?????
Here you GO!!!!!
Ejc@aol.com
and another one if that doesn't work:
Cashman@chitdis.crt.state.vt.us
Kick his a$$.
John
I don't like head-to-head judicial elections; they are magnets for corruption and too often are bought off by the dirty trial lawyer vermin.
But on the other hand, lifetime sinecures are no solution either, as this case would seem to show.
I like our system here in Arizona: judges are appointed, but must stand unopposed for a retention election every four years. Most of the time, they win with 90%+ of the vote, but every so often we are able to weed out a real bad apple.
-ccm
Correction:
Ejc29@aol.com
and away he goes!!!!!!!
John
If you're talking about a jury of real native Vermonters, I'd agree. However, the place is now full to the gills with old hippies who left Massachusetts and promptly set about befouling Vermont in the same way.
-ccm
Sean Hannity is already on his case, and I suspect O'Reilly will be along in short order. This guy has really stepped in it...BIG time.
You mean against the sex perp or the so-called judge?
Who wants to bet Hiz Honor lives in a nice upscale neighborhood? One that needs a half way house for violent sexual offenders? I'll chip in -- let's make it happen...
Ping
Hannity and Colmes BOTH did a good job on this tonight.
They had some weird little twerp defense atty who thought it was perfectly OK (the 60-day sentence). He's probably a perv just like the child rapist. Those NAMBLA freaks stick together like glue. ICK!
This is shocking, even for the nutbags in VT! Of course, the real shocker is that the VT rats can't afford to have this pedophile locked up long because they need his vote.
God help the children of the liberal machine of that sorry state.
Can the prosecution appeal the sentence to a higher court?
Thanks for the ping.
Good point. The Demcorats as a whole rape the rest of us all the time.
Judge Cashman also threw out a case against a drunk driver because the police who arrested him were U of Vermont police and the street the driver was driving drunk on was not a campus street. So this is a judge that is playing advocate and looking for technicalitites and loopholes.
It is time to bring back some common sense ways of doing things from the good old days!
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