Don’t punish Vermont for the shortsighted decisions of robed men
In truth, to any sane person, the ruling was unthinkable, a sentence so inexcusably inadequate for the scale of the crime as to defy any precedent dating back to the Cenozoic Era.
Edward Cashman, his face lit up with the arrogance of a pug as he dictated his decision, seemed to have bitten himself free of his senses. His concept of punishment for a convicted child rapist, a mere 60-day confinement, three months before Martha Stewart’s term, was an atrocity unmatched since Cut’em Loose Bruce sat on the bench in New York City. .
The victim, a young girl, will serve a life sentence, imprisoned not by bars of emotional trauma so strong that they cannot be broken, nor by open doors to freedom. Gone are her innocence, her childish confidence, her wonder and amazement.
Cashman claims, to the amazement of the nation, that “punishment doesn’t work.” He defends his decision by explaining that since the convict, Mark Hulett, was not eligible for immediate treatment in prison, he needed to be released quickly to begin treatment.
Here is a delinquent with such a great mental defect that he sees life gloomily through the eyes of a diabolical predator unable to control his horrible attraction to children.
Fortunately, the state has changed its rules specifically for this case. The prison system will allow this pedophile to receive treatment while incarcerated for an appropriate period of time. So Cashman has put him behind bars for three years, but that’s still inappropriate.
Unfortunately, Judge Cashman is not the only judge who seems to have a soft spot in his heart for pedophiles. According to Bill O’Reilly, Judge David Howard, also a Vermont judge, sentenced a man who sexually abused a four-year-old boy to probation and was removed from a case when he released another defendant, a man whom the judge represented. in 1991, but he never told the court before presiding over the case and letting the man walk.
These rulings are anathema to the trust we place in our judges to sentence properly. It is not up to the judge to decide whether the punishment works or not, but has the task of imposing the punishment prescribed by the sentencing guidelines. If repeatedly raping a child is worth 60 days, then surely, by the rules of comparative rationality, murder should not generate more than a year.
We are all in danger and diminished by such foolish precepts. Feeling the winds of reassignment blowing against him in the Legislature, Cashman has wisely announced his “retirement.” Now we have to get Howard off the bench and hopefully it will be a well splintered one.
The reaction to Cashman’s ruling was quick and sharp. When it was announced, Vermont instantly became an outcast, a besieged state, for a legitimately enraged nation. The governor’s office was inundated with emails, letters and phone calls from irate Vermont visitors who vowed to forfeit future Vermont vacations and threats to boycott any Vermont-made product.
I understand anger, as do many in the state. But we must ask you with the utmost respect and humility to consider your decision not to come here carefully. A visit to one of the nation’s most picturesque states may be being denied.
And we must also ask ourselves, was it the owners of Vermont B&B who passed the sentence? Hotel owners? Spa and Resort Operators? Restorers? Museums? Ski area owners? Cheese makers? Wood craftsmen? No, they were two woefully wrong judges whose rationality needs to be questioned.
Those of you hurt by anger, enough to make your feelings known in tangible ways, are right. This is truly embezzlement of the worst kind, but don’t deny yourself the extraordinary wonder that Vermont is.
Instead, go up. The wonder and magic of Vermont have just begun to bloom for the summer and the views are breathtaking.
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