By C1 Staff
PAINESVILLE, Ohio — An Ohio judge is getting attention for his creative sentencing.
ABC News reports that Judge Michael Cicconetti has been doling out odd punishments for years – his most recent was giving an 18-year-old who skipped out on cab fare for a 30-mile trip to either spend 30 days in jail or walk 30 miles.
“A judge can simply follow the law and if somebody committed the crime, here are the possible penalties,” Cicconetti said. “How much of that do I impose? Sure, you can do that and you can go home and you can rest easy. Or you can take each case a little more personal and still apply the same law.”
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His sentences appear to be working; recidivism in Painesville is only 10 percent, which is way below the national average of 75 percent.
“When you talk about state prisons and federal prisons, their problem started way back here with my court, with municipal courts, with the minor offenses. Most people don’t start out with a felony case,” Cicconetti said. “It starts small, and it gets bigger, so my whole train of thought here is that we have to stop them or prevent them – that conduct – from going further at the beginning stages. They get in jail. They get smarter criminally, and as they get smarter criminally, the offenses become greater.”
Many who have been sentenced by Cicconetti said they were grateful to have an option other than jail.
A woman who pleaded guilty to animal neglect and cruelty after leaving her dog trapped inside a house for a week opted to pick up garbage instead of spending 90 days in jail. And a man who pleaded guilty to stealing a bike avoided 60 days in jail by doing ten days of community service.