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Punishments Not Cruel, But Unusual

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By RON WORD, The Associated Press

Published: November 4, 2007

PALATKA - Reshane Lewis wasn't happy, sweat dripping from her face as she paraded outside the courthouse here carrying a sign reading, "I stole from a local store."

The sun beat down. For two hours, Lewis carried the red-and-white sign back and forth, her probation officer watching.

"It is better than going to jail, but it's not fair," said Lewis, who says she was arrested in a Wal-Mart last December for being the lookout while a friend took children's clothes.
Putnam County Judge Peter Miller has sentenced Lewis and more than 600 other people to carry signs at the courthouse or outside victimized stores during the past dozen years, part of his standard punishment for shoplifting.

He is one of several judges across the country who think unusual sentences, usually some form of public penitence, work. The company that administers Putnam County's probation system says that only three of Miller's sign carriers have repeated their offense.

"If you see someone marching up and down in front of a store, you may think twice before stealing. I'm not going to say it is going to prevent it, but it will stop the one who did it from doing it again," said the judge, who gives the thieves a choice of a 30- or 60-day jail sentence or two hours of humiliation. They also must pay a $294 fine, perform 25 hours of community service and complete six months' probation.

Miller is not alone in his creative sentencing, as recent examples show:

•Some teens who yelled, "Pigs" at police officers in Painesville, Ohio, were forced by Municipal Court Judge Michael A. Cicconetti to stand on a street corner with a pig and a sign reading, "This is not a police officer." He also made three men arrested in a prostitution sting wear chicken suits near the area where they were arrested and carry a sign that referred to a notorious brothel: "There is no chicken ranch in Painesville."

•Judge Larry Standley in Harris County, Texas, ordered a man who had slapped his wife to take yoga classes to help him lessen his anger.

•A San Francisco judge sentenced a man convicted of mail fraud to stand outside a post office with a sign that read: "I stole mail. This is my punishment."

Assistant Public Defender Mack Brunton, who represents many shoplifting defendants before Miller, said, "We don't like it, but what he does is legal."

Lewis, who carried the sign after the Wal-Mart arrest, said that after fines, court fees and the cost of probation she is out $500. She sees Miller's demand that she march as piling on.

Sentences using public humiliation aren't new - in colonial times, lawbreakers were forced to sit in stocks. Their neighbors would taunt them and throw rotten vegetables or even excrement.

William V. Dunlap, a professor at the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, has looked into unusual sentences and doesn't know of any studies showing whether jail or public embarrassment is a stronger deterrence. Because the cases are misdemeanors, the sentences are seldom challenged in higher courts, Dunlap said.

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