Shaming Sanctions

“Only an idiot drives on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus.” So read a sign that an Ohio judge ordered a woman to wear after being convicted for the acts caught on video here. Apparently it was not an isolated incident. A parent whose daughter rode the bus said the defendant “did this almost every day last year.” (That sort of thing could result in a more serious punishment in North Carolina. See G.S. 20-217, one of the very few crimes for which the General Assembly has explicitly said a defendant may not receive a prayer for judgment continued.) People occasionally ask me about the propriety of nontraditional sentences like the one described above—sometimes called shaming sanctions or “Hester Prynne” conditions, in reference to the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter. When I get those questions, it’s often a judge trying to come up with a creative way to get through to a younger, repeat offender—the kind of defendant the judge senses would accept a short jail sentence with a shrug or, worse, a smile. Some of the conditions I have read about include: A DWI offender ordered to place an identifying bumper sticker or special license plate on his or her car, or to wear a special bracelet; Men convicted of soliciting prostitutes required to have their names and faces displayed on a local access television program popularly known as “John TV”; A shoplifter required to wear a court-provided t-shirt reading “My record plus two six-packs equals four years.” There [...]