Truly, to any sane person, the ruling was unthinkable, a sentence so inexcusably inadequate for the magnitude of the crime as to defy any precedent going back to the Cenozoic Era.
Edward Cashman, his face alight with pug-like arrogance as he handed down his ruling, appeared to have gnawed himself free of his senses. His concept of punishment of a convicted child rapist, a mere 60-day confinement--three months short of Martha Stewart's term--was an atrocity unmatched since Cut'em Loose Bruce sat on the bench in New York City.
The victim, a young girl, will serve a life sentence, imprisoned not by bars of emotional trauma so strong they can't be broken, nor doorways to freedom opened. Gone are her innocence, her child-like trust, wonder and awe.
Cashman claims, to the astonishment of the nation, that "punishment doesn't work." He defends his decision by explaining that since the convict, Mark Hulett, was ineligible for immediate treatment in prison, he needed to be freed quickly to begin treatment.
Here is a felon with a mental defect so vast that he views life darkly through the eyes of a fiendish predator unable to control his hideous attraction to children.
Fortunately, the state has changed its rules specifically for this case. The prison system will allow this pedophile to get treatment while incarcerated for an appropriate period of time. So Cashman has placed him behind bars for three years, but that's still inadequate.
Unfortunately, Judge Cashman isn't the only judge who seems to have a soft spot in his heart for pedophiles. According to Bill O'Reilly, Judge David Howard, also a Vermont judge, sentenced a man who molested a four-year-old boy to probation, and was removed from a case when he set free another defendant--a man whom the judge represented in 1991, but never told the court before presiding over the case and letting the man walk.
These rulings are anathema to the trust we confer on our judges to sentence appropriately. It's not a judge's place to decide whether or not punishment works, but rather they are tasked with meting out punishment prescribed by sentencing guidelines. If repeatedly raping a child is worthy of 60 days, then surely, by the rules of comparative rationality, murder should garner no more than a year.
We all are endangered and diminished by such asinine precepts. Sensing the winds of reassignment blowing against him in the Legislature, Cashman has wisely announced his "retirement." Now we need to push Howard off the bench, and hopefully it's one well splintered.
The reaction to the Cashman ruling was swift and barbed. When it was announced, Vermont became an instant pariah, a state under siege, to a legitimately enraged nation. The Governor's office was inundated by emails, letters and phone calls from irate Vermont visitors who swore off future Vermont vacations and threats to boycott any Vermont-made products.
I understand the anger, as do many in the state. But we must ask with the utmost respect and humility that you consider your decision not to come here carefully. You may be denying yourself a visit to one of the nation's most scenic states.
And we must also ask, was it Vermont B&B owners who handed down the ruling? Hotel owners? Spa and Resort operators? Restaurateurs? Museums? Ski Area owners? Cheese makers? Wood crafters? Nay, it was two woefully misguided judges whose rationality is much in need of questioning.
Those of you stung to fury, enough so to make your feelings tangibly known, are correct. Truly this is malfeasance of the worst sort, but don't deny yourself the extraordinary wonder that is Vermont.
Instead, come on up. Vermont's wonder and magic have just started to bloom for summer and the views are striking.
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