• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Unusual Sentences Imposed By Courts

A

Anonymous

Guest
And how about more creative punishments? Any good examples of more bizarre cases? There's this one in the news today:

Killer must carry coffin photo

A woman who killed a man in a head-on collision has been ordered carry a photograph of the teacher in his coffin as part of her five years of probation. Jennifer Langston admitted vehicular homicide, reckless endangerment and reckless driving. A judge in Butler, Pennsylvania, sentenced her to 30 days in jail, plus house arrest and probation, and ordered her to carry a picture of Glenn Clark.

A few years ago I saw a man stood on the central reservation of a main road here holding a placard saying "I killed two people whilst driving drunk on this road". Apparently it was part of a court order, and he had to do it for two hours every month (IIRC). I guess he must have successfully appealed as I didn't see him again.
 
Ingenious punishments

Their object all sublime

Oct 12th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition


A vogue for shaming wrongdoers

ON SEPTEMBER 30th students at the University of Massachusetts threw a toga party. The cops showed up, uninvited. They charged the host, James Connolly, with under-age drinking, making too much noise, and having a keg without a licence. For punishment, he had to put on his toga again and stand in front of the police station for an hour.

Dan Markel of Florida State University reckons that such “shaming punishments” are on the rise. In 2003 a couple of teenagers who defaced a nativity scene in Ohio had to parade through town with a donkey. “The punishment must fit the crime,” explained the judge, Michael Cicconetti. Several cities have aired the names of men caught soliciting prostitutes on “John TV”. In 2004 a federal appeals court agreed that a mail thief could be made to stand outside a California post office wearing a sandwich board. “I stole mail,” it read. “This is my punishment.” In Virginia, if you fail to pay child support, you may find your car wheel-clamped: pink if you are neglecting a girl, blue for a boy.

Many support shaming punishments. Amitai Etzioni of George Washington University has argued that they are a good way to express communal values. Fines, in contrast, imply that you can buy a clear conscience. And shame seems to be a powerful deterrent. Mr Cicconetti says he sees few repeat offenders. Cheerful Hobbesian types want everyone to know who the bad guys are, so that decent citizens can avoid them.

Others are doubtful. According to Mr Markel, shaming punishments undermine human dignity. He suggests alternative punishments that omit the public-humiliation factor. A landlord who flouts the health code, for example, could be made to stay in one of his own slums. And it is true that there is something unpleasant about the desire to see other people humiliated. Remember the matron who objects to Hester Prynne's scarlet letter: “Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or suchlike heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

But voters appear to be comfortable on the high horse. Ted Poe, a former district judge from Texas, made his reputation by issuing a string of embarrassing sentences. He called this “Poe-tic justice.” Once, he sentenced a man who stole pistols from the Lone Ranger (technically, the actor Clayton Moore) to shovel manure in the Houston police stables. In 2004 Mr Poe was elected to the House of Representatives at his first attempt.



www.economist.com/world/na/PrinterFrien ... id=8039492
Click to expand...
 
We don't seem to have a thread dedicated to strange sentences, so I'm starting one with this story ...

Missouri poacher ordered to repeatedly watch ‘Bambi’
A Missouri poacher has been ordered to repeatedly watch the movie “Bambi” as part of his sentence for illegally killing hundreds of deer.
The Springfield News-Leader reports that David Berry Jr. was ordered to watch the Disney classic at least once a month during his year-long jail sentence in what conservation agents are calling one of the largest deer poaching cases in state history.

Prosecutors say the deer were killed for their heads, with their bodies left to rot.

Berry was convicted in southwest Missouri’s Lawrence County of illegally taking wildlife. Three relatives and another man also were caught in connection to the poaching case. They’ve paid $51,000 in fines and court costs.

Berry also was sentenced to 120 days in jail in nearby Barton County for a firearms probation violation.
Click to expand...

SOURCE: https://www.apnews.com/f67c5ab3ea3f4cb8bad7bfca87a329ca
 
"Let the punishment fit the crime." If the crime was itself bizarre, I suppose it follows that the sentence would be just as odd.
Judge tells restaurant iguana thrower: Don’t brag about it

An Ohio judge has told a man who threw an iguana at a restaurant manager that he’s not allowed to brag about the crime.

Forty-nine-year-old Arnold Teeter pleaded guilty Thursday to cruelty to animals and resisting arrest.

Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti (chik-oh-NET’-ee) sentenced Teeter to two years of probation. The conditions also include that Teeter cannot live in a home with animals for five years.

In April, authorities said Teeter pulled the 2-foot-long (0.61-meter) iguana from under his sweatshirt, swung it around by its tail and threw it at a Perkins Restaurant manager but missed.

The iguana suffered a fractured leg but recovered.

The lizard had ended up with Teeter after getting away from its rightful owners while they were moving. It has since been returned to them.
Click to expand...

SOURCE: https://www.apnews.com/2b4c148dc8e54620acfff12408803a4c
 
I think this just about fits in this category, though it's more a sentencing than a trial oddity. A Leicester judge has sentenced a young right-wing extremist to read Dickens, Shakespeare and Hardy, when he could have imposed a 15-year sentence. He will be tested on his reading at regular intervals.

I realise the sentence is going to prove controversial in all sorts of ways but I really like the fact the judge is trying to come up with an imaginative solution. Yes, it may go wrong, and I'd suggest some different, perhaps more contemporary authors, but I'm not sure jail would do anything other than entrench his views. We'll see...

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ist-to-read-classic-literature-or-face-prison
 
cycleboy2 said:
I think this just about fits in this category, though it's more a sentencing than a trial oddity. A Leicester judge has sentenced a young right-wing extremist to read Dickens, Shakespeare and Hardy, when he could have imposed a 15-year sentence. He will be tested on his reading at regular intervals.

I realise the sentence is going to prove controversial in all sorts of ways but I really like the fact the judge is trying to come up with an imaginative solution. Yes, it may go wrong, and I'd suggest some different, perhaps more contemporary authors, but I'm not sure jail would do anything other than entrench his views. We'll see...

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ist-to-read-classic-literature-or-face-prison
Click to expand...
Far from the madding crowded prisons, hard times reading literature, alls well that ends his extremist views.
 
cycleboy2 said:
I realise the sentence is going to prove controversial in all sorts of ways but I really like the fact the judge is trying to come up with an imaginative solution. Yes, it may go wrong, and I'd suggest some different, perhaps more contemporary authors, but I'm not sure jail would do anything other than entrench his views. We'll see...
Click to expand...

I'm certainly comfortable that the attempt is being made. Interesting, I want to see what Ben John thinks about the whole thing in 15 years.
 
cycleboy2 said:
I think this just about fits in this category, though it's more a sentencing than a trial oddity. A Leicester judge has sentenced a young right-wing extremist to read Dickens, Shakespeare and Hardy, when he could have imposed a 15-year sentence. He will be tested on his reading at regular intervals.

I realise the sentence is going to prove controversial in all sorts of ways but I really like the fact the judge is trying to come up with an imaginative solution. Yes, it may go wrong, and I'd suggest some different, perhaps more contemporary authors, but I'm not sure jail would do anything other than entrench his views. We'll see...

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...ist-to-read-classic-literature-or-face-prison
Click to expand...
Frideswide said:
I'm certainly comfortable that the attempt is being made. Interesting, I want to see what Ben John thinks about the whole thing in 15 years.
Click to expand...
Campaign group 'Hope Not Hate' have asked for a review of the sentence.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-58425648
 
Cochise said:
That sounds like 'Hate not Hope'. Of course this could go wrong, but AFAIK the young man has not physically hurt anyone so far. Maybe he can be fixed - I'm glad the court has tried this iinnovative approach.
Click to expand...

I don't know, I mean he's 21, not in his mid-teens. People have gotten life sentences for planning bombings where no one was hurt.
 
ramonmercado said:
I don't know, I mean he's 21, not in his mid-teens. People have gotten life sentences for planning bombings where no one was hurt.
Click to expand...
And I in my head have frequently wanted to kill and dismember certain politicians.

Except I'm squeamish and don't like the sight of blood.

But if not for that the bodies would be stacked several deep.
 
ramonmercado said:
He did more than think about it. Muslim teens have been sent to prison for possessing documents which they downloaded.
Click to expand...
One act of stupidity does not justify another. Thinking about committing a crime is not a crime. Otherwise every spouse - I won't speculate about how many - who has contemplated killing their partner after a drunken row or such would be in prison and we'd need at minimum ten times the prisons we have.
 
Cochise said:
One act of stupidity does not justify another. Thinking about committing a crime is not a crime. Otherwise every spouse - I won't speculate about how many - who has contemplated killing their partner after a drunken row or such would be in prison and we'd need at minimum ten times the prisons we have.
Click to expand...

But how many start to actually plan the murder in the cold light of day? He downloaded almost 70,000 documents. He continued to do so after he was given a chance.
 
ramonmercado said:
But how many start to actually plan the murder in the cold light of day? He downloaded almost 70,000 documents. He continued to do so after he was given a chance.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's a LOT of dodgy documents.
 
This seems obsessive...who looks at that many when writing a paper?

If he is a fanatic then changing him might not be possible...short of brainwashing.
 
Kondoru said:
This seems obsessive...who looks at that many when writing a paper?

If he is a fanatic then changing him might not be possible...short of brainwashing.
Click to expand...
I would assume he's not going to disappear off the Police / Special Branch radar.
 
If he downloaded 70,000 documents, at least he already enjoys reading.
 
A British Columbia activist who glued himself to a bank's door has been formally banned from possessing glue as part of his sentencing.
B.C. climate activist banned from possessing glue as part of court sentence

A climate activist who glued himself to the door of a Royal Bank of Canada branch in April has been banned from possessing adhesive outside his home as part of his conditional discharge for the crime.
A Nanaimo provincial court decision issued in early August and posted online more recently imposes the unusual condition on Victor Lawrence Brice, a member of the protest group Save Old Growth.
Brice pleaded guilty to two charges, one related to the RBC branch protest and the other stemming from a protest on a provincial highway on Jan. 27, according to judge William Jackson's reasons. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/...sing-glue-as-part-of-court-sentence-1.6073069
 
ramonmercado said:
But how many start to actually plan the murder in the cold light of day? He downloaded almost 70,000 documents. He continued to do so after he was given a chance.
Click to expand...
Since this convo has popped up again I've had a think about this. This is just my cut, obviously.

There obviously must be a line to be crossed somewhere that defines when one goes from contemplating a crime to actively preparing for it.

One clear line is in the definition of conspiracy to carry out a crime. The line there is reasonably straightforward at least for a typical case - there has to be an actual agreement to commit a specific crime, or the active encouragement of a third party to commit a specific crime.

In the case of a lone actor, then again surely there needs to be evidence of intent to commit a specific crime? A written plan, perhaps purchase of materials or weapons? Reading generalised literature would not seem to meet that test.

An obsessive with interests in a particular type of crime or any other obsessive interest might well do that without any intent to commit a crime themselves. I mean, I wonder whether the libraries of some Ripperologists would reach into thousands of documents.

Did the authorities find evidence of actual plans to carry out a specific crime? If so, then I'd say the test was met. Otherwise, I'm still not very comfortable with it.
 
Cochise said:
There obviously must be a line to be crossed somewhere that defines when one goes from contemplating a crime to actively preparing for it.

In the case of a lone actor, then again surely there needs to be evidence of intent to commit a specific crime? A written plan, perhaps purchase of materials or weapons? Reading generalised literature would not seem to meet that test.

An obsessive with interests in a particular type of crime or any other obsessive interest might well do that without any intent to commit a crime themselves.

Did the authorities find evidence of actual plans to carry out a specific crime? If so, then I'd say the test was met. Otherwise, I'm still not very comfortable with it.
Click to expand...

From the original Groan article: “…he was convicted by a jury of possessing information likely to be useful for preparing an act of terror…”

“58 Collection of information.

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism

(b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind

(c) the person views, or otherwise accesses, by means of the internet a document or record containing information of that kind.”

s.58 Terrorism Act 2000

We don’t know the nature of many of the 67,788 documents he DL’d, but l’d be prepared to bet that he met the conditions of s.58

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
From the original Groan article: “…he was convicted by a jury of possessing information likely to be useful for preparing an act of terror…”

“58 Collection of information.

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he collects or makes a record of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism

(b) he possesses a document or record containing information of that kind

(c) the person views, or otherwise accesses, by means of the internet a document or record containing information of that kind.”

s.58 Terrorism Act 2000

We don’t know the nature of many of the 67,788 documents he DL’d, but l’d be prepared to bet that he met the conditions of s.58

maximus otter
Click to expand...
Thanks Max. Now you mention it I recall that act coming in and the controversy at the time because loads of angsty teenagers were downloading something called the Anarchist's Cookbook or similar which came under the act.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top