Loading ...Judge gives criminal option: Jail or church
flockwood“I don’t know what’s worse, church or jail.” — Idgie Threadgoode, Fried Green Tomatoes.
Question: Did Circuit Judge Timothy Pickard improperly mix church and state by giving this option to a Michigan youth?
Read the story (below) and then let me know what you think of the unconventional sentencing option. I’ll post my two cents worth at the bottom…
Judge’s order lets Tecumseh teen avoid jail if he apologizes, attends church
ADRIAN, Mich. (AP) — Go to jail or go to church.
Given that choice by a Lenawee County judge, a Tecumseh teenager who pleaded guilty to trying to break into a church opted for the latter.
Circuit Judge Timothy Pickard told 17-year-old Dylan Patrick Karle last week that he could avoid jail if he would apologize to the congregation of the United Methodist Church in Tecumseh and attend services there for the next three Sundays.
Karle, who is a member of the church, promptly accepted Pickard’s offer. The judge also placed Karle on probation, but his felony conviction will be expunged if he stays out of trouble for three years.
Karle was among several juveniles arrested Sept. 27 while trying to break into the church in the town 45 miles southwest of Detroit.
“Church or jail” have been around for a long time. Here’s an example from the August 3, 1959 issue of Time magazine. The ACLU didn’t like them then. It doesn’t like them now.
(Here’s another example from 2005.)
I would argue, however, that the 2010 Michigan case is substantively different from the 1959 California case and the 2005 Kentucky cases.
In the two prior cases, there was no logical connection between the crimes (assault, drug charges) and the punishment (sitting on a pew.)
But in Michigan, the offender must spend three weeks at the church where he committed his crime and sit among the people who were his victims. There’s a nexus between the crime and the consequences. And my gut tells me the kid is going to learn something there about accountability and responsibility, forgiveness and grace, even if he shuts out the songs, prayers and sermons.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Well, it’s an interesting kind of precedent. Since I am deeply fond of chocolate, may I go break into Theo Chocolate (an organic free-trade factory in Fremont, WA) and receive a sentence of sitting in the factory, helping out, for three weeks? May I break into the historic 5th Avenue Theater this next week and sit through a national tour of South Pacific? I know I would learn a lot about chocolate, and washing that man right out of my hair…
February 4th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Normally I object to this kind of thing, the government using force in matters of religion, but this case has two mitigating factors. The young man is already a member of the church, so the judge is merely reinforcing an existing commitment. And after all it IS a United Methodist Church, for goodness sakes!
And what about the parents? I wonder if they had any involvement in the sentencing.
February 7th, 2010 at 11:46 am
You never know. He could just be casing the joint, so next time he doesn’t get caught. I, for one, trust our legal system’s ability to keep people honest more so than I do the churches.