People who abuse, neglect, or mistreat animals in any way always seem to get off lightly, much to the frustration of us animal-lovers.
There have been countless petitions campaigning to increase the penalty for animal cruelty, as many people hope that this will be a deterrent for the crimes people commit against animals. It seems that there aren’t enough judges out there who are fans of animals, but we do believe that things are slowly beginning to change.
When we came across a video of a judge who had a unique way of sentencing those who had mistreated animals, we began to feel some hope in the justice system again. As a self-confessed animal-lover, the judge treats each case individually and comes up with a punishment that will hopefully teach the defendant how it feels to be the animal that they mistreated. His creative sentences are really smart, and we hope that other judges around the world begin to implement these too!
Judge Michael Cicconetti’s mission is to make people think twice about breaking the law, and one of his more creative sentences was shared in an audio clip onto YouTube by Audioburst. The short clip, titled, “Listen To The Unusual Punishment This Judge Gave A Woman Who Let Her Dog Live In Filth” now has over 500,000 views – and we think it deserves even more!
In the clip, Michael can be heard scolding the defendant for her actions.
He then suggests a sentence that serves to give the woman a good dose of karma. As she neglected her dog so badly that he lived in horrifically unclean conditions, the judge suggests that the woman now gets a taste of her own medicine – by spending some time in an area that heavily mimics the environment her poor dog was stuck in.
“I can’t interpret the thoughts of a dog, but boy if dogs could tell you how they felt: abandoned, scared, frightened and sick. Well maybe you should get a little taste of that.” Michael continues, “I want you to go down to the county dump to the landfill. And I want you to find the stinkiest, smelliest, God-awful odor place they can find in that dump. I want you to sit there for eight hours tomorrow, and just think what you did to that dog while you smell the odor. If you puke, you puke.”
In a phone interview, the Municipal Court Judge from Painesville, Ohio told iHeartDogs that his first dog made him the animal lover he is today. His family owned a Dachshund mix named Herman, and he was a loving childhood companion and “the best pet a kid could ever ask for.”
Today, Micheal’s love for dogs has continued on, and he’s now the proud dad of a 10-year-old Bernese Mountain dog named Kasey.
His love for animals allows him to be compassionate during court cases, and he always hands out the appropriate sentences for each defendant. Another case involved a heartless woman who abandoned 35 kittens in the woods, and Micheal decided that as a punishment, she would have to spend a night alone in the snowy wilderness, along with jail time and a fine.
“How would you like to be dumped off at a metro park late at night, spend the night listening to the coyotes … listening to the raccoons around you in the dark night, and sit out there in the cold not knowing where you’re going to get your next meal, not knowing when you are going to be rescued?”
We think that Michael is doing a great job as a judge, and the reasoning behind his sentences is brilliant! We need more judges like Michael.
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