Crime and creative punishment

News emerged this week that Judge Michael Cicconetti, known for his 'creative' sentences, ordered a woman from Ohio to walk 30 miles in 48 hours after she tried to avoid paying for a taxi.

Judge Cicconetti said Victoria Bascom's crime demanded 30 days in jail before then giving her an alternative.

'If you can't afford a cab what would you do? Walk. So I think it's appropriate that you walk the 30 miles, instead of jail. It's going to get boring, but if you don't to go to jail, you do that,' he said.

Bascom was also ordered to pay the $100 cab fare and complete three days of community service.

Cicconetti is renowned in legal circles for his unusual punishments. In November 2005, he gave a local woman the choice of 90 days in jail, a $3,200 donation to the Humane Society, or one night spent alone in the woods, after she allegedly abandoned 35 kittens in two Ohio parks.

In 2007 the judge ordered one man to wear a chicken suit as punishment for soliciting a prostitute. Cicconetti was supposedly inspired by the 1982 movie 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'.

Yet the Painesville Municipal Court Judge is not alone in doling out penalties you'd be hard-pressed to find in UK sentencing guidelines.

An Ohio man faced a $150 fine in 2008 for playing rap music too loudly in his car. However, his judge offered to reduce the fine to $35 if he spent 20 hours listening to classical music by Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin. Alas, the defendant lasted only 15 minutes before agreeing to pay the fine in full.

In 2012 a judge ordered a South Carolina woman to read the Old Testament as part of her punishment for drink-driving and subsequently injuring two people in a crash.

Another case from 2012 saw a Florida judge order a man to wine and dine his wife with flowers, birthday card, Red Lobster, and bowling after an argument ensued between the couple. Apparently the husband had not wished his wife a happy birthday. An arrest affidavit alleged the man pushed his wife onto a couch and held his fist up to her.

The same year a photographer from Cincinnati was so incensed by his impending divorce that he took aim at his soon to be ex-wife on social media, calling her an 'evil, vindictive woman'. At court, a judge gave the man a choice between posting an apology on Facebook every day for 30 days and going to jail.

While there's little evidence such punishments reduce crime and are anything more than judicial grandstanding, it seems likely Bascom and others may think twice before ditching their local cabbie in Judge Cicconetti's jurisdiction.

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