Rather than advocating for the convict to warm a prison bench, an Ohio judge sentenced the man to attend a Baptist church for 12 consecutive Sundays.
Yes, really.
Judge William Mallory sentenced 23-year-old Catholic Jake Strotman to the, er, verdict, after the young man indulged a bit too much and accosted Baptist street preachers.
“They were telling me I was going to hell,” Strotman said. “I was asking them: ‘Why do you think you can condemn people?’ I didn’t understand why they thought they could judge me.”
Actually, it was Strotman himself who proposed the alternative sentence.
“I’m trying to get to something reasonable here. And I’ll be honest with you guys, sometimes in certain places, people don’t want to be preached to. You agree with that, right?” Mallory reportedly told Joshua Johnson, one of the preachers Strotman allegedly assaulted.
Now, for 12 consecutive weeks, Strotman must attend Morning Star Baptist Church and have the minister sign his program.
Maybe more judges should try this method.
