Two-month prison stay is not punishment fitting the crime

Visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran does not want Timothy Marino, a key player in a major criminal organization that stole $400,000 worth of goods from businesses in the Mahoning Valley, to “mistake kindness for weakness.” Well, Marino might not, given that he is out of prison after only two months, but we certainly will.

Judge Curran, sitting in the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court, was weak when he ignored the objection of county Assistant Prosecutor Kasey Shidel, and released the convict, who had barely settled into his cell to serve a two-year prison sentence. Marino had pleaded guilty to nine counts of receiving stolen property for buying items such as trailers and all-terrain vehicles the burglary ring members stole.

Indeed, Shidel pointed out to the judge that the prosecution had already given Marino a break when it dropped a racketeering charge. Had the charge stuck, it would have meant an additional eight years in prison.

“Without him, these items wouldn’t have been sold to third parties,” the assistant prosecutor noted, in arguing against early release. “He was a fence. When stuff was stolen, it was taken to him, and he’d find a willing buyer.”

But Curran was not swayed by the very strong legal arguments from Shidel and apparently chose to have his heartstrings tugged by Danielle Sulick, the mother of Marino’s 10-year-old daughter. He’s a “wonderful father” who has provided for the child, Sulick said.

Marino may well be a candidate for Father of the Year, but the fact remains that he chose a life of crime. This wasn’t someone down his luck, jobless, with burglary the only avenue left to him so he could provide for his daughter.

Good job

Timothy Marino works at General Motors Corp.’s Lordstown Assembly plant, and even if he were one the lowest paid employees, he’d still be earning more than a lot of Valley residents who keep walking the straight and narrow when times are tough.

Indeed, Marino’s lawyer, John Fowler, told the court that GM is holding his client’s job open for him.

In releasing Marino, Judge Curran placed him on five years’ probation and ordered him to undergo periodic alcohol and drug testing. He must maintain full-time employment, keep up his child support payments and perform 200 hours of community service.

That’s all well and good, but freedom in this case is just another word for a judicial tap on the wrist.

To be sure, Danielle Sulick’s appeal for leniency was compelling. A letter she wrote to the judge would melt the hardest of hearts.

However, that’s not what justice is about. If it were, no one would be serving time behind bars because just about every person convicted of a crime and sentenced to jail or prison has someone making a plea for leniency. There are wives and husbands, domestic partners and lovers, and there are children who all bemoan the hardship caused by the convict begin taken away from them.

But there is only one question that should be asked in a court of law: Does the punishment fit the crime?

The two-year sentence Marino received was not only justified, it was less than we expected.

Judge Curran told Marino at his judicial release hearing on Monday: “Because I agreed at the time of sentencing to grant you judicial release on good behavior, I’m going to follow through on my decision.”

But judicial release after just two months? Marino didn’t even have time to misbehave.