There always seems to be something in the news about a unique punishment being imposed on a defendant. So, I thought it was time for a continuing post that could take you to the articles.

The first one is the doghouse punishment.

If your jurisdiction has an unusual condition of probation, let us know about it.

For an update on the doghouse punishment, go to Houston Chronicle article.

For the latest in creative sentencing, see:

Philadelphia Inquirer

Our standard plea offer requires probationers to turn over to the probation office their tax refund check. The money is used to pay off restitution, court costs, fines, P/O fees, etc.

We have received exactly zero static over this point from defendants & their attys. Ironically, we got a lot of resistance from the probation dept. when we started routinely requiring this condition, but I think they have found it very useful.

We often have our younger defendants that are given probation write an essay of 1,500 to 2,000 words on some topic related to their offense or what they plan to do with their life. Hopefully it makes them think a little about whether or not they're going to reoffend.

For the occasional overtly racist defendant, we often make them read a book called "Racial Healing: Confronting the Fear between Blacks and Whites" and then write an essay about what the defendant learned from the book and how his racial attitutes have or have not changed from reading this book. While we can't expect with any certainty that they'll change their minds, maybe we can make racists re-examine their views and see if the people they hate are really so bad after all.

Here's an article about some creative sentencing in Santa Fe, NM:

Dallas Morning News link

Here is a creative punishment from a Harris County judge, who is requiring the defendant to clean toilets because he abused the civil rights of a probationer by giving him a swirley.

Here is a great creative condition of probation for sex offenders at Halloween:

Oct. 29, 2003, 3:10PM

Sex offenders must turn lights out on holiday
Associated Press

LUBBOCK -- Authorities in three West Texas counties have strict orders for sex offenders this Halloween: Go home, turn out your lights, close your blinds and don't answer your door.

Officials in Lubbock, Potter and Tom Green counties on Friday are requiring convicted sex offenders on probation whose victims were children to be home by 6 p.m., and officers will check on the 100 or so men and women throughout the evening.

"It's good to know they are putting sex offenders on notice," said Margaret Crawford, president of the Lubbock school district's Council of PTAs who will take her 8-year-old son out to collect candy and treats. "I think that's a top priority for any parent."

Potter County began the Project Lights Out program last year. Lubbock and Tom Green counties are using it for the first time Friday.

Statewide, parole and probation authorities will increase their supervision of sex offenders during the entire weekend, said Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Mike Viesca.

Letters went out last week to sex offenders in Lubbock County whose victims were children. The reaction has been mixed, said Steve Henderson, director of adult probation.

"Some are doing it willingly, some are complaining about it," he said. "They have not advanced as far in treatment as they need to."

One sex offender who is on probation for indecency with a child about five years ago said he thinks the program is appropriate.

"There's no reason for kids to be going to our houses anyway," said John, 28, who asked that his last name not be used.

John, though, got permission to deviate from the program's requirements. In the years since he was placed on probation for indecency with a 15-year-old in Abilene, his routine on Halloween has been to be away from his home with friends.

John will tell his probation officer where he will be and officers will check on him at that location, said David Rowan, the supervisor of the sex offender unit in Lubbock.

Terry Easterling, the head of adult probation in Potter County, got the idea from a television reporter three days before Halloween last year and implemented the program quickly.

"If we can protect one kid, 10 kids, it's certainly worth the small amount of time and effort that we are putting into this project," Easterling said.

Other states, including New York, Virginia and California, have similar initiatives. In California, Operation Boo has been part of Halloween for about 10 years. Parolees are not allowed to have candy in their homes and can't put up any Halloween decorations.

Marc Klaas, whose daughter, Polly, was abducted from her California home in late 1993 and found murdered two months later, said more programs like Project Lights Out and Operation Boo will help safeguard children who are out enjoying being children.

"I think they're a great idea," he said. Otherwise, "it's like Santa Claus knocking on your door if you're a pedophile."

Great, I have to be out of town on the big night, and I just figured I'd leave the porch light off, so no young'ns would waste precious treat-getting time knocking on my door, only to receive no answer. Now, I have to worry that the folks in my time zone will assume that a sexual predator was ordered to black out at that particular house.
Does anyone have a generic, "law-abider lives here" affidavit that I can download and post on the door above the come and get it wheelbarrow of Tootsie Pops at the front porch?

How about this for some creative punishment:

Girls pummel exposer.

A Houston judge has ordered yoga as a form of anger management, rather than jail time.

Round Rock Man Sentenced For Videotaping Women In Gym

May 26, 2004 9:32 pm US/Central
A Williamson County judge sentenced a man �back to the 19th century so he can live like a monk.�

Wednesday former Round Rock gym owner Peter Schmitz received two years in jail and 10 years on probation for secretly videotaping 10 people, including a 16-year-old girl, at Champion Fitness.

Police arrested him last January saying he put cameras in the ladies dressing room.

As part of the probation, Schmitz will not be allowed to own a television, VCR, DVD player, camera, camcorder, or camera cell phone.

Is forcing a rapper to listen to Wayne Newton too much punishment? Read the story story on creative punishments.

It certainly is unusual, and I would consider forcing me to listen to rap cruel. So, maybe it does violate the 8th

For my husband's 50th birthday (long ago), an A.D.A. in Wichita (who will remain nameless to protect his reputation) gave as a gag gift the cassette of "Pat Boone sings Heavy Metal"--yes it's a REAL album and, yes, my husband actually listened to it all.

No worse than any William Shatner album.

Some years back we had an imate/civil rights litigant who managed to actually get his federal jail medical care lawsuit to trial. He got benched back from wherever he was serving his sentence and was in our jail for the trial, where the head nutritionist at that time was a lady who absolutely loved pimento cheese sandwiches, with extra pimentos. Gobs and gobs of them. She was sort of a motherly sort, and she thought she was doing the inmates a favor to lovingly add all those extra pimentos.

Well, the prisoner/litigant was a diabetic and the pimento cheese absolutely grossed him out, and he claimed that he wasn't able to eat them and was teetering on going into shock because the jail served them so darn often (true). I gotta admit, pimento cheese is one of those love-it or hate-it foods. Me, I hate it -- it was about the only thing that inmate and I agreed on.

Long story short(er)-- the federal judge absolutely couldn't believe that I was willing to accomodate the guy's pimento cheese aversion, but we willingly did so. [The pimento thing wasn't part of the lawsuit, it was just something we heard in chambers at the pretrial conference.] On those many, many pimento cheese days, he was offered the option of another sandwich (of the jail's choice, not his). He always took the 'other' sandwich.

We did win the lawsuit, completely. Darn thing went a whole week, long for a federal bench trial and rare in that it even got to trial. Don't think I'll ever forget that one.

Still can't stomach pimentos.

A Texas judge recently sentenced a woman to 30 days in jail on animal cruelty charges for starving her horses. He also sentenced to eating only bread and water, commenting that was more than she gave her horses. He also order that a poster size enlargement of the starved horses be hung on the wall of her cell as a reminder of her behavior!

Curbs put on parolees' cheer

Some must sign New Year's Eve no-driving pledge
By JANET ELLIOTT
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau



AUSTIN - Watching the ball drop in Times Square from the comfort of their living room may be one of the few options for scores of Texas parolees wanting to celebrate on New Year's Eve.

In a first-time initiative aimed at making streets safer, some parolees with drunken driving records have been instructed to sign pledges that they won't drive from 7 p.m. Dec. 31 to 6 a.m. Jan. 1.


Kathy Shallcross, deputy director of the parole division at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said the initiative is not so much a lockdown as an effort to prevent high-risk offenders from operating motor vehicles on a night when celebrating with alcohol is the tradition. But she conceded it may effectively amount to a lockdown since parole officers will be randomly calling parolees Friday night to make sure they are home.


Shallcross didn't know how many parolees in the Houston area have been contacted to sign the pledge. But she said that about 50 of the highest risk offenders will receive unscheduled visits from their parole officers Saturday. Others have been ordered to report for a urinalysis Monday.


The extra scrutiny probably will result in some parole revocations, but Shallcross said returning people to prison is not the goal of the holiday crackdown. Parole division officials decided it was time to err on the side of public safety.


"We're convinced that by trying to contain their movement and prevent them getting behind the wheel of a car, we are doing good for the community," she said.


The offenders being targeted are on parole from convictions for felony driving while intoxicated, intoxication manslaughter, intoxication assault and other offenses involving drinking and driving, said Shallcross.


"During the holiday period, people tend to reoffend for obvious reasons," said Shallcross. Special arrangements have been made for people who need to work Friday night.


The initiative is part of a changing strategy on how the state deals with paroled offenders, she added. During other holidays, hundreds of Houston-area sex offenders were told to remain at their residences.


"Instead of looking at parole officers as 8-to-5, let's do random checks when they're not expecting it," Shallcross explained. "By taking this approach, it definitely has helped us to possibly prevent future criminal activities."


But lawyers who represent paroled inmates are wondering how far the state will go.


"Are they going to extend that to their birthdays and other holidays?" asked David O'Neil, a lawyer with offices in Houston and Huntsville.


Many parolees whose offenses involved alcohol already have their driving restricted and are banned from being in bars.


"The law is that reasonable conditions of parole may be placed upon individuals by the parole board. To require them now to sign a pledge that they will not drive on New Year's Eve, I'm not sure that's reasonably related to their parole," said O'Neil.


O'Neil said a federal appeals court recently said that the state cannot do whatever it wants in the name of public safety. On Dec. 21, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled that Texas violated the rights of a Central Texas parolee who never had been convicted of a sex offense yet was required to register as a sex offender and attend therapy.


Tony Ray Coleman was on parole from a burglary sentence when he was indicted on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and was reincarcerated.


In January 2001, Coleman was released on parole and one month later, a parole panel required him to register as a sex offender and attend therapy.


A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit said Coleman should have been given notice and a hearing to contest the new conditions.


"Absent a conviction of a sex offense, the (criminal justice) department must afford him an appropriate hearing and find that he possesses this offensive characteristic before imposing such conditions," said the ruling.


Shallcross said TDCJ lawyers are reviewing the ruling, which could apply to dozens of other parolees who have been forced to register as sex offenders despite not being convicted of sex offenses.


O'Neil said he thinks the pledge may be challenged in court.

"Parole division officials decided it was time to err on the side of public safety."

Three cheers.