Saturday, January 07, 2006

Judge Has No Feelings for Victims

Judge Edward Cashman says he 'no longer believes in punishment'. I thought the work of a judge was to hand out punishment that fit the crime, not decide that no punishment was needed for a convicted criminal. But, apparently, Judge Casham sees his job differently.

When he took the bench 25 years ago, he handed down stiff sentences. But, now he thinks this "accomplishes nothing of value." Now, he is more into rehabiliation.

His reasoning?

  • "It doesn't make anything better; it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger," Cashman explained to the people in the court, WCAX reported.

Mark Hullet, of Vermont, pleaded guilty to raping a young 7 year old girl over a period of 7 years. Prosecutors said he deserved 8 to 20 years in prison. But, the judge disagreed and gave him only 60 days. What message does this send to other rapists in Vermont?

I believe in 'Do the crime; pay the time'. It's outrageous that this judge is allowed to give out such sentences to a professed rapist on a young child.

Cashman said he wants to make sure Hulett gets sex-offender treatment.

Under Department of Corrections classification, however, Hulett is considered a low-risk for re-offense, which means he doesn't qualify for in-prison treatment.

Cashman, therefore, issued a 60-day sentence and ordered Hulett to complete sex-treatment when he gets out or face a possible life sentence.


Needless to say, member's of the child's family were outraged!

HT to Mr. Minority with his post on 'What Liberal Judges Have to Offer - Freedom For Criminals.'

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2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

She was six years old and he was raping her for four years. Not that it really makes a difference, it's still sick and he should be in jail for the rest of his life but I just thought I'd clear that up. I do, however, think that VT needs to reassess their views on rehabilitation. It seems odd that they would wait until the criminal is back on the streets before beginning treatment, wouldn't it make more sense to treat the disease before releasing him as a means of avoiding such atrocities in the future? Hmmm...

Barbara said...

You are right. That's what they have been saying online. Both the article and I got it wrong. They said she was 7 years old and over a period of 4 years. I got the 4 years wrong, from their 'wrong' post.

Hopefully, this is going to change in the future. Think I heard on the news last night they are going to try and get the sentence changed, since the jail or prison said they would give him rehabiliation (can you really rehabilitate a person like this?), if the sentence was higher.