Posted on 01/31/2006 2:23:59 AM PST by freepatriot32
TROY, Mich. — A judge who sentenced three teenagers to probation for being drunk at their high school prom had them jailed after he saw them drinking and ridiculing him on a Web site one of them created.
"I told them, 'If you think this gives me any pleasure, you're wrong,'" Oakland County District Judge Michael Martone said after sentencing the last of the girls, Amanda Senopole, to 10 days in jail last week.
"You know, it's just a crying shame," Martone said. "I work my butt off trying to help kids like this, trying to figure out what works. And then they do things like this."
Senopole and eight other Troy Athens High School students were caught drinking at their prom last May. They were arraigned before Martone on misdemeanor charges of being a minor in possession of alcohol.
Martone, who had appeared at Athens High days before the prom to warn graduating seniors against drinking, sentenced the students to probation, fines, court costs, community service and alcohol-education classes. As a condition of their probation, he ordered them not to drink and to avoid places where alcohol is served or consumed.
Several months later, Martone was looking on the Internet for a news release on one of the many alcohol-prevention programs he has promoted during his 13 years on the bench. He entered his own name into a search engine and came to a site belonging to Mary Meerschaert, one of the Athens students he had sentenced.
His computer screen showed Meerschaert, Senopole and some of the other students who had appeared before him in court — making obscene gestures, chugging shots of Jagermeister liqueur, posing with beer cans stacked nearly to the ceiling and vomiting into toilets.
The Web site's headline included an abbreviated obscenity directed toward the judge.
Meerschaert, by now enrolled at Michigan State University, had used a digital camera to create an Internet photo gallery with students appearing passed out and couples playing a drinking game among its more than 400 images. Many of the picture captions were profane and directed at Martone.
The gallery also showed Senopole, Meerschaert's roommate, and another co-defendant in the prom incident, Rachel Stesney — enrolled at the University of Detroit Mercy — drinking at parties at Michigan State.
"They made a mockery of the legal system," Martone told the Detroit Free Press for a story published on Jan. 27. "I had to do something."
The judge showed the Web site to police and probation officers. It became legal evidence for charging the three women with contempt of court "for disobeying my direct order not to consume alcohol," Martone said.
Meerschaert and Stesney appeared before Martone on Dec. 23. Meerschaert admitted that her Web site did use profanity aimed at Martone, and that she had a drinking problem.
He sentenced her to 30 days in the Oakland County Jail, then sentenced Stesney to 15 days. They shared a cell during Christmas and New Year's Day.
Senopole appeared before Martone last week, telling him: "I have a new roommate now. She doesn't drink." She also said she earned a 3.6 grade-point average in the fall at Michigan State, and pledged she would introduce an alcohol-education program in her dormitory.
Martone doubled Senopole's hours of community service, to 100, but gave her less jail time than Meerschaert and Stesney — 10 days — and let her serve them one at a time, on weekends, "so it doesn't interrupt your studies."
Of the nine students who drank before the prom, two others also have served jail time for later alcohol infractions.
Cheryl Stesney would not let her daughter comment. Martone, she said, "let his anger get out of control. He was just so hurt and embarrassed by that Web site."
Meerschaert's mother, Polly, agreed. "I do feel this is all about vengeance. I won't say my daughter didn't make a mistake. But the minute it became personal, the judge should've removed himself," she said.
"Judge Martone's a fair man," Senopole's father, Tom, said outside the courtroom last week. "She was just in the wrong crowd, wrong time, wrong place."
Very true Jeff. If I violated a judges order, I would expect to have some extra tacked on. Don't know if that is legal or not but again I would expect it. Cheers!
FWIW, a far more detailed article at the link below seems to indicate that a new charge of contempt of court was not issued and the original sentences were only revised.
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060127/NEWS03/601270321/1005
The girls were idiots for going to court without a lawyer and thinking that just crying for the judge would smooth things over.
These girls are out of control but so is this jackass judge. He feels he's been dissed and wants revenge
Good point, but it was more of a condition of probation rather than an order. The girls were foolish for publicly mocking a judge, but do we really want judges that so easily get their feelings hurt and seek revenge? Judges are supposed to be above that.
I know that judges are only human, but this judge didn't even try to hide the fact that he took these actions personally. His original sentence was even too harsh for the crime so he should understand that a lot of young people are going to feel contempt for his rulings.
If he can't get past that then he should stop being a judge in cases involving teenagers and young adults.
I look forward to more of your anecdotal evidence.
Judges do not recuse themselves for contempt of court situations, nor will another judge intervene.
If the pressed the issue, they may well have gotten six months from another judge.
Why? The girls violated the terms of their sentencing. Rather blatantly. Are you suggesting that the judge should have ignored it?
Your response suggests that you didn't read the article.
The girl is doing 30 days for contempt of court, and violating the terms of her original sentence -- which called for community service, no jail, and no consumption of alcohol.
I did and I even posted a far more detailed article in this thread that suggests that the judge only revised the original sentences.
Recuse himself? On what grounds? He witnessed the kids violating the terms of their sentencing. I don't think the ridicule had anything to do with it, and even if it did, that isn't reason to recuse, AFAIK.
No doubt this girl was used to getting her way by acting vulnerable and turning on the tears. I seriously doubt that she has a drinking problem - she just wanted to appear very contrite, vulnerable and say what the judge wanted to hear.
I agree that she took the others down with her. With a lawyer she would have be informed what tactics work and which ones don't. Throwing yourself at the mercy of the court is never a good idea.
This judge should really stop hearing cases about underage drinking since he has such a personal stake in it. How can he really issue fair and unbiased rulings when he is an activist in the area?
Bad girls, Bad girls
Whatcha want, watcha want
Whatcha gonna do
When judge Martone come for you
Tell me
Whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do
Yeaheah
It's a pretty damned whiny article. None of the punishments doled out by the school are any different from the ones that were in effect when I was in HS. The kids were in obvious contempt of court. I don't see any problem with what the judge did.
The kids were violating the terms of their probation.
They were.... And they were also directly in contempt of court. There's no "over the top" in what the judge did -- the girls deserved what they got.
I agree that the judge acted properly. How stupid to post this kind of web site - but what can you expect when the parents are dumb enablers.
Perhaps the real problem is the unrealistic attitudes about alcohol that are becoming dominant in our society.
One is not supposed to touch a drop of alcohol until one's 21st birthday. In Maryland, the legislature toyed with the idea of making it illegal for parents to permit the consumption of alcohol by their own children in their own home at any time prior to a child's 21st birthday.
Which raises the question: Why do we believe that a magical fairy touches a person on the head on his 21st birthday with the fully-developed ability to drink in an appropriate way?
Myself, I began "drinking" at age 4. That's right. Age 4. A sip of my dad's beer, a sip of wine. As we got older, a sip of scotch, or of a whiskey sour, or of some other cocktail. As we got even older, sips turned into our own glasses of wine at dinner, maybe a half ounce or an ounce. A little older, a little more in the glass.
By the time we were of "drinking age," we all knew how to drink appropriately. Four kids. No drunk driving arrests, no alcohol problems. Of the four of us, we have our fair share of life's problems. We aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But none of us have problems with alcohol. We're all hard-working, taxpaying citizens who drink socially.
Why? Because our parents didn't trust that the "Alcohol Fairy" was going to wave a magic wand on our 18th birthdays (that was the legal age when we were young) and make us responsible drinkers. Our parents TAUGHT US how to drink responsibly, how to prepare for adulthood, from the time we were small children.
sitetest
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