Ain't That a Shame . . .

The New Republic has an interesting column about the concept of shame as punishment. Lest you think that the concept went out of fashion with the first printing of The Scarlet Letter, the Ninth Circuit last week upheld a shaming condition as part of a defendant's supervised release. The defendant was convicted of stealing mail and sentenced to a few months in prison. As with all those convicted of federal crimes (at least until Blakely gets extended this far), he must serve a term of supervised release, which is sort of like probation or being on bond. There are certain conditions with which you must comply. Failure to do so is a ticket back to prison. Anyway, one of the conditions this guy had to comply with was to stand in front of a post office with a sign that said "I stole mail. This is my punishment" for one day.

On appeal, this guy argued that the condition was only impose to shame him in the community and didn't have any relation to the goals of punishment, like deterrence or rehabilitation. The Ninth Circuit disagreed, by a 2-1 vote. The column rightly takes the Ninth to task for getting it wrong in this case.