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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."
I agree why wasnt he forced to recuse himself? I think they got really strong grounds to appeal this decision.
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You're joking, right?
Wow!
So often the parents are enablers. Kudos to this father for supporting the judge! She was "wrong", "wrong", "wrong".
Good job dad.
They disobeyed a direct court order with contempt. The judge acted properly.
Nope. Even if the judge were in the wrong on this case, the idiot girls violated a court order and conditions of probation. No appeal possible from that.
IMHO, it's the idiot mothers who should go to jail. It seems to me that they are the ones who have enabled their girls to be drunken idiots who despise authority.
Cool, I saw this item on FNC over the weekend, was hoping it would pop up here.
And recusal is absurd, as others have pointed out. If a defendant cusses out a judge in open court, and the judge sentences the defendant to 30 days for contempt, do you think that is inappropriate as well?
And here's the real link for the story:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=16384
Judge is out of control here.
Well, until you've gotten a call from the emergency room, stating that they think they have your daughter, don't get too much over his case about this. Drinking is a serious problem these days. When the ER called us, and I'm an RN, we went through every possible stage of emotion before the episode was over. We came within about 1 degree of losing our only daughter due to the fact that she cannot refuse a dare. She tried drinking a beer, then nearly drank a whole 5th of vodka on top. She passed out, and was unable to get off the floor as the "friends" all deserted her. If a friend of the family, a young airman, had not recognized her as he was passing by the bar in a taxi (in a saloon-like place in Incirlik, Turkey) we'd have lost her. There are many kids who die from toxicity from their first drinking binge because of dares, fraternity/sorority parties, etc. I would appreciate a judge taking the time to redress the situation in this case. Obviously the kids didn't get it the first time.
Is that Libertarian philosophy, or just a knee jerk reaction?
Judge Martone had ordered that they did not consume alcohol.
Had he witnessed them doing so in person and called the LEO's, the result could have been the same. ie: violation of a court order.
Your braying makes no sense.
think they got really strong grounds to appeal this decision.
Nope. Even if the judge were in the wrong on this case, the idiot girls violated a court order and conditions of probation. No appeal possible from that.
IMHO, it's the idiot mothers who should go to jail. It seems to me that they are the ones who have enabled their girls to be drunken idiots who despise authority""
Another group who has adopted the "Bill Clinton" syndrome.
Do as you please and have absolutely no consequences.
Someday the whole society will stand up and recognize the painful truth of what a rotten influence the Clintons have been on America and the world.
LOL!!!
And doing the WRONG thing...
I scrolled down to make sure this point was made before I posted. Thanks.
"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."
Tell them to become judges so they can do it on a daily basis.
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