Because the judges there give you homework to do when they sentence you to a jail term. And not just any homework, but Bible study. According to this report, at least :
After Cassandra Belle Tolley pleaded guilty to driving drunk and crashing into a car, seriously injuring two people, a judge sentenced her to eight years in jail followed by five years of probation and substance abuse counseling.
Circuit Court Judge Michael Nettles also included another order in the sentence, one that’s much less common.
Tolley must read the Old Testament book of Job and write a summary.
The judge in the trial, Michael Nettles, is a deacon and Sunday school teacher when he’s not putting people in jail, and since the defendant Cassandra Belle Tolley, a victim of child physical abuse who was once set on fire by a relative, had “found god” after the drunk-driving accident in which she injured 2 people last year, Nettles apparently felt in the mood to subvert the separation of church and state, and asked Tolley to write a report on the book of Job from the Old Testament in addition to her jail sentence.
Remind me never to fall into judge Nettles’ hands. I pity this poor lady. First abused by family and relatives, then pounced upon by proselytizing Christians when at her most vulnerable, and now locked up in jail with the added bonus of having to write a report on the Stone Age superstition the judge believes in.
But he loves you, right.
Well, they’d never get me on drunk driving. (I don’t drink.) But I’d jump at the chance to write the good judge his report. And I wouldn’t limit it to Job, either. If he bothered to read it, I imagine I could have him thinking twice about prescribing that kind of sentence again.