Some of Judge Rapkin's prior great calls:
Rapkin's decisions on the bench have previously brought criticism.
In 1995, Rapkin refused to sentence a convicted sex offender to the 15 years in prison prosecutors wanted for a probation violation. Instead, the judge ordered him to to four weekends in jail.
Within weeks, the sex offender became the prime suspect in the killing of a 14-year-old girl. The man was never charged with the crime.
And in 1996, a man faced 19 months in prison for setting his ex-girlfriend's car on fire. After the woman told Rapkin she didn't want the man to go to prison, Rapkin sentenced him to probation.
Rapkin's words to the defendant might be considered prophetic.
"You know what the judge's worst nightmare is?" Rapkin said in court, according to a 1996 story by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. "If I were to take a chance on you and put you on some type of control release, and I pick up the paper and I find that you've gone and done something stupid, you know who gets the hot seat? Not you, me."
The man was later accused of firing a shot at the ex-girlfriend with a shotgun.
According to reader Rabidfox, the murdered girl was the daughter of the sex-offender parolee's girlfriend.
Posted by floridacracker at February 13, 2004 02:23 AM