Seen as a Target for Sex Assault, Man Avoids Jail

A judge refused to send a drug offender to prison, saying the man would be a target for sexual assault because he is thin and white.

Instead, Hillsborough County Judge Florence Foster placed Paul Hamill on two years of probation and ordered him to a treatment center for violating probation on a previous cocaine conviction.

“He’s a small, thin, white man with curly dark hair, and I suspect he would certainly become a sexual target in the Florida state prison system,” Foster said, according to a transcript of the November sentencing hearing.

“I’ve been told they can’t protect people like that. I’m not going to send a man like this to Florida state prison. That is cruel and unusual punishment in my book,” she said.

Prosecutors have complained in the past that Foster imposes light sentences.

Foster would not discuss Hamill’s case specifically but said her general goal is to “help people with drug problems get rid of their drug problems.”

Bruce Rogow, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Davie, called Foster’s action “a statement of great sensitivity.”

But Susan Rush, a law professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville, called Foster’s statement a “fairly racist comment.”