Public Humiliation is a Great Idea

Reuters: 'I stole mail'---

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed a California man to be sentenced to spend a day outside a San Francisco post office wearing a signboard stating, "I stole mail. This is my punishment."

The justices rejected an appeal by Shawn Gementera, who argued that this was designed to publicly shame and humiliate him. He said it violated the Sentencing Reform Act and the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Gementera pleaded guilty to mail theft after the police arrested him and an accomplice in 2001 for stealing letters from several mailboxes in San Francisco.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker in 2003 sentenced Walker to two months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.

The conditions for his release required Gementera to spend four days at a post office observing patrons inquire about lost or stolen mail, to write letters of apology to the victims of his crime, to give three lectures at high schools about his crime and to wear the two-sided sign for one eight-hour day.

Gementera appealed the legality of the signboard requirement, but a U.S. appeals court panel, by a 2-1 vote, ruled against him in August.

The appeals court said the record in the case showed that the judge imposed the condition for the legitimate purpose of rehabilitation.

It said the judge could have imposed a lengthier prison term instead of the signboard condition, and added that crimes and the resulting penalties nearly always cause shame and embarrassment.

Hooray for Judge Vaughn Walker! I think this sort of thing is absolutely necessary and useful and a deterrent for others. Back when behaving badly meant public humiliation and scorn, people committed less crimes, behaved politely, and society was much better for it.

Now we live in a very permissive society where nothing, really, seems to result in public scorn. Everything goes. Very sad.