Posted on 01/06/2006 6:30:56 AM PST by NYer
Claiming he no longer believes in punishment, a Vermont judge issued a 60-day sentence to a man who confessed to repeatedly raping a girl over a four-year period, beginning when she was 7 years old.
Judge Edward Cashman disagreed with prosecutors who thought Mark Hulett, 34, of Williston, Vt., deserved eight to 20 years in prison, reported WCAX-TV in Burlington, Vt.
Cashman said he's more concerned now about rehabilitation.
"The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn't solve anything. It just corrodes your soul," Cashman told a packed Burlington courtroom made up mostly of people related to the victim.
Prior to the decision, Chittenden Deputy Prosecutor Nicole Andreson argued punishment "is a valid purpose."
"The state recognizes that the court may not agree or subscribe to that method of sentencing but the state does," she said, according to the Burlington TV station. "The state thinks that it is a very important factor for the court to consider."
Cashman said he wants to make sure Hulett gets sex-offender treatment.
Under Department of Corrections classification, however, Hulett is considered a low-risk for re-offense, which means he doesn't qualify for in-prison treatment.
Cashman, therefore, issued a 60-day sentence and ordered Hulett to complete sex-treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence.
The judge said that when he began 25 years ago, he handed down tough sentences but now believes "it accomplishes nothing of value."
"It doesn't make anything better; it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger," Cashman explained to the people in the court, WCAX reported.
Members of the victim's family were outraged.
"I don't like it," the victim's mother told the TV station, in tears. "He should pay for what he did to my baby and stop it here. She's not even home with me and he can be home for all this time, and do what he did in my house."
"An inept judiciary, failing to administer justice, encourages vigilantism."
EXACTLY!!! Who knows, maybe that's what the judge was going for...the most that the vigilante actor would receive is 60 days, right??? In this case, the judge just saved taxpayers a boatload of money!!! /S
R3
How does one become a stockbroker (or a terrorist, as I think of it) in Vermont??
If this scumbag gets 60 days for repeatedly raping a 7 yr old for 4 years, what can I get for a little fraud, embezzelment, insider trading etc? Three hours of community service (running a copier at the Dem club) and the stern admonishment of 'BAD BOY, BAD BOY'!
HA HA HA, eat your heart out Martha Stewart, you got almost a year for fibbing to the feds. In Vermont you would have had to fold the napkins at the homeless shelter for a day.
Of course anger solves things. People should get angry and demand this evil, evil judge's removal from the bench. We should stay angry until he's gone.
My first thought as well...then I realized that the jerk would probably justify the rapes by saying "If she'd only been aborted, this never would have happened."
Visit Vermont, but don't bring your children along unless the know karate, kung foo or tai kwondo.
Unfortunately there are too many judges who feel the same way. Impeach!
Unfortunately there are too many judges who feel the same way. Impeach!
Why not just flip all the cards and call the judge what he is: an idiot.
I can understand the outrage over this decision but I hope that when tempers cool a bit someone will consider the points that the judge made:
Lengthy incarcerations are expensive and don't seem particularly effective at altering behaviors anyway.
Letting someone out of prison after a long term of incarceration and making him register as a sex offender destroys any chance of his obtaining a decent job and being too busy working to re-offend; it only gives him a sentence of poverty, idleness, frustration, alcoholism, community scorn and other things not likely to lead to law abiding behavior.
I don't know if this defendant will re-offend or not. I think the sentence is a bit too lenient, but it will be an interesting experiment. Certainly the judge is correct in his statement that punishment does not seem to work.
In Louisiana by law the perp would be executed. Child rape is a capitol offense.
A similar thing happened here in Mass with judge Lopez a few years back. The ensuing firestorm eventually caused her to resign. Of course I recently read that she's now been offered her own daytime judge show on TV soon.
Do you know if this law has ever been carried out? In the period since the Supreme Court interfered with the death penalty, I mean. My understanding is that the Supremes invalidated capital punishment for all but extreme cases of murder. "Ordinary" murders don't qualify.
The problem with capital punishment laws for rape and such crimes is that they would tend to result in a much lower number of convictions. And that, when dealing with adults, people do lie about whether the sex was consensual.
(Children lie too, but your're not supposed to be having sex with them at all, so consequensuality is irrelevant.)
Otherwise I'd be all for them.
Then we have that other judge here in Mass who recently told the Rape victim to "Get over it"....
A message to all you child molesters and pedophiles out there across the fruited plain: "Welcome to Vermont!"
all he has to do is request segregation for his protection and he will get a private room and eveything brought to him for the length of his sentence.
America has quit buying French wine; maybe it is time America quit buying Vermont syrup.
Do you think the rural maple syrup farmer is the state's problem?
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