The report was incorrect in two major respects: the sentence the judge imposed and the statements he made about punishment. The defendant pled guilty to three crimes pursuant to an agreement that gave him the chance to withdraw his plea if he was sentenced to more than 90 days to serve. The crimes were two counts of aggravated sexual assault (based on admissions that the defendant had, over the course of four years starting when the child victim was 6 years old, licked the child’s vagina on multiple occasions and placed his penis in the child’s mouth at least once) and one count of lewd and lascivious conduct (based on an admission that the child had stroked his penis “quite a few times”). Judge Cashman imposed an incarcerative sentence of 60 days to 10 years to serve for the first count, a consecutive probationary sentence of 5 years to life on the second count and a consecutive probationary 2- to 5-year sentence on the third count. Thus the statement that the judge “sentenced him to just 60 days in prison” was incorrect.
Ah, so he got 60 days in prison and probation. Big whoop of a difference.
As far as the judge’s position on “punishment,” the Joyce account was likewise wrong. What Judge Cashman actually said was “I keep telling prosecutors, and they won’t hear me, that punishment is not enough.”
Yeah, judge, but the punishement YOU handed down was nowhere near enough.
The judge said that he had “started out as a just deserts sentencer,” but he had “discovered it [retribution] accomplishes nothing of value … doesn’t make anything better, . . . and costs us a lot of money.”
Yeah, but it keeps a perv off the streets.
He now realized a sentence must “solve a problem” so that “people are better off after the sentencing than they were before.”
Unless, of course, they just rape another child after they are done. But what's a few ruined lives as long as a noble social experiment can go forward?
Wow, was determining all of that in his job description, too?
-PJ