Don't take it out on judge
Toolbox
Published: January 21, 2006
Governor Douglas was wrong to call for Judge Cashman's resignation, and Senator Wilton's was wrong to call for a mandatory minimum sentence bill on account of Judge Cashman's recent sentence of a sex offender.
As Sunday's Rutland Herald article shows by quoting from the transcript of the sentencing hearing, Judge Cashman simply realized that the public would be better protected by making this criminal undergo sex offender treatment before he was released from jail rather than after his release, when he would be out in public. Punishing the criminal should never trump protecting the public. As a lawyer, I see that these goals do sometimes conflict.
If the Legislature should investigate anything about this, it should investigate the corrections policy that led to Judge Cashman's decision to begin with.
In sentencing criminals, as in most other things, one-size-fits-all does not work. Judges should continue to be able to impose different sentences depending on the facts of the case and even on such things as how far over capacity the prisons are. Corrections' capacity is a consideration because a judge shouldn't sentence to jail someone who poses less of a danger to society than the inmate whom Corrections will furlough to make room for the new arrival.
Judges do sometimes make mistakes, like all of us. That is not a good reason to take away their discretion. Senator Wilton's calling for minimum sentences on account of what she thinks Judge Cashman did is rather like proposing to take away the state's attorneys' ability to plea-bargain just because one state's attorney has proposed a plea bargain that was too lenient. (That does happen. Usually when a judge rejects a plea bargain, as I bet Judge Cashman has done occasionally, she or he does it because the bargain is too good for the accused.)
If Judge Cashman had truly made a mistake, the remedy would be for legislators to vote against him when he comes up for reconfirmation. Only then would the Legislature have a good overview of his decisions as a whole.
HERBERT G. OGDEN
Mount Tabor
35