Woman who abandoned kittens sentenced to spend night at Lake Metropark

[Max Webster]

The park thing is a bit bizarre. Its possible that this sentence could get messy and come back and haunt authorities. The judge should have just tacked a few more days onto her jail time.

[Dis]

it's not cruel, but unusual.

jail time would be useful. But she should also have to do community service at an animal shelter or something.

[Az]

it probably isn't, but nature can be quite dangerous in certain places and a death sentence/permenant maiming would indeed be cruel for this crime despite what the animal lovers are saying.

Nothing of the sort would happen to her.

Dis is right : it's not cruel, but it sure is unusual.

[KrazyHorse]

WTF is the uproar? It's a ****ing park for one night.

Basically, the judge ordered her to go camping.

[Az]

The punishment is unusual KH. I am not upset for her, but I think there is a constitutional issue here.

[Dis]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
WTF is the uproar? It's a ****ing park for one night.

Basically, the judge ordered her to go camping.

yep, I do it all the time. That's why it's not cruel.

[DinoDoc]

They're afraid of nature.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Az
The punishment is unusual KH. I am not upset for her, but I think there is a constitutional issue here.

It's not that unusual. Its severity is lower than the severity of the offence, and the principle of putting the offender into contact with the consequences of her offence is well-established.

He told her to go sit somewhere for 12 hours and think about what she did. She'll be in perfect safety the whole time.

[ajbera]

Maybe they can skate around the constitutionality of the sentence by employing grammatical rules. The prohibition is against cruel and unusual punishment, so if it's merely one or the other it's okay. This punishment is unusual but not cruel, and I'd argue that jail/prison is cruel (who wants to be locked up with rapists and murderers?) but not unusual.

Regardless, the bitch deserves this, at least. I don't know where we accepted fines and imprisonment as the only acceptable punishment. The punishment should be what would most effectively deter the perp from commiting the crime again, instead of being a standard monetary penalty or segregation from society. If this punishment helps her see the error of her ways, good. I'm sure there are more than a handful of criminals who would think twice before commiting an act if they knew exactly what their actions were doing to the victims.

[KrazyHorse]

If she's acquainted with nature then this punishment will be a joke. If she's not acquainted with nature then this punishment will serve a positive purpose.

He didn't tell her to hunt, skin and eat her own food, he didn't tell her to rub dirt in her hair.

She can sit against the trunk of a tree in perfect quiet dignity.

I don't find this unusual in the same sense that some of the more bizarre punishments we hear handed down are.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by ajbera
Maybe they can skate around the constitutionality of the sentence by employing grammatical rules. The prohibition is against cruel and unusual punishment, so if it's merely one or the other it's okay. This punishment is unusual but not cruel, and I'd argue that jail/prison is cruel (who wants to be locked up with rapists and murderers?) but not unusual.

Believe it or not some experts do construe the sentence that way (it can be construed as either banning the union or the intersection of cruel punishments with unusual punishments, due to the vagaries of the English language). I do not, given the likely consequences of such an interpretation.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
How a person treats animals offers clues as to what his or her soul is really like.

She should have gotten her cat fixed so it wouldn't have had kittens.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Whoha
its probably not cruel, she does have a walkie-talkie, but it certainly is unusual, the judge should have either fined her, thrown her in jail, or sentenced her to community service.

and someone(local authorities perhaps) should remind this judge that cruel & unusual is verboten.

Community service at an animal shelter would have been a better way to go.