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Sex Offender Re-sentencing Hearing Scheduled

Burlington, Vermont - January 23, 2006

The stage is set for Judge Edward Cashman to reconsider a controversial sentence.

Judge Cashman sent an admitted child molester to jail for 60-days because the sex offender could not get therapy in jail. Prosecutors claim the sentence is illegal because the judge included no punishment.

Monday, the molester's lawyers filed a response claiming that it would be illegal to change the sentence.

Judge Cashman has scheduled a Thursday morning hearing to entertain arguments about why he should-- or should not-- reconsider the sentence that has made Vermont ground zero in a raging debate over crime and punishment.

"The original sentence was appropriate and I think it's a sentence the court should abide by," explained Mark Kaplan, the lawyer representing convicted child molester Mark Hulett.

Kaplan claims Judge Edward Cashman has no legal right to lengthen the 60-day minimum sentence imposed on Hulett.

"I don't think it's a fact that the judge can reconsider because what happens at every sentencing is, you go back, take a look at the case, just as it was the first time around," said Kaplan.

Hulett admitted he sexually abused a young girl for four years starting when she was six, but the judge wanted him in sex offender treatment as soon as possible and therefore sent him to prison for only 60 days.

The sentence triggered a national controversy and a call by Fox talk-show host Bill O'Reilly to "consider" boycotting Vermont.

In response, Vermont prison officials changed the policy so Hulett and all sex offenders can get treatment while still behind bars.

Last week, prosecutors filed a motion asking Cashman to reconsider the sentence and impose a longer one of at least eight years behind bars. They claim the change in prison policy clears the way for the judge to correct the sentence prosecutors claim is "illegal."

But in his written motion filed Monday, Kaplan disagrees and argues that the changes come too late.

"And so the fact that the department's willingness to change their policy is really a new fact that I don't think is appropriately in front of the court," said Kaplan.

The reconsideration hearing is scheduled to be heard Thursday morning at the Chittenden County District Court in Burlington.

Brian Joyce - Channel 3 News