Better than jail time? Some judges try unusual sentences - Several jurists think public humiliation -- usually making the offender stand outside with a sign -- is a more effective punishment.
PALATKA, FLA. — Reshane Lewis wasn't happy as she paraded outside the courthouse here, sweat dripping from her face, and carried 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. Passers-by and court employees mostly ignored her.
"It is better than going to jail, but it's not fair," said Lewis, who says she was arrested in December at a Wal-Mart for acting as 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 over the last dozen years, part of his standard punishment for shoplifting.
He is one of several judges nationally who believe 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:
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 own 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."
