Recently in Strange Punishment Category

An Ohio magistrate gave Mark Byron a difficult choice: Go to jail, or post a long-winded public Facebook apology to his estranged wife -- every day, for the next 30 days.

"It's outlandish," Byron told The Cincinnati Enquirer. "I'm afraid to do anything. People are even fearful that Facebook can be regulated by a judge."

But a judge affirmed the magistrate's ruling, and found the Facebook apology fitting in Byron's case. Byron had blasted his wife in an earlier rant on Facebook, which violated a restraining order, the judge ruled.

School children everywhere, here is an unsolicited lesson in proper class etiquette. Never, ever insult your teacher, or spew bad language in the middle of class. You shouldn't tease your classmates, and you shouldn't cheat during your exams.

Oh, and don't burp in class. You might get arrested for that.

That is exactly what happened in the case of one 13-year-old from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The student let out some gas in the middle of a PE class on May 11.

A federal judge in Kentucky is no fan of law-breaking hunters. The tough jurist sentenced North Carolina resident Rodney Poteat to a two-year, worldwide hunting ban earlier this month.

Convicted on charges of illegal hunting and removing wildlife, Poteat will serve out the ban as part of court-ordered probation.

He will also pay the state $5,300--the cost of licensing fees he failed to pay between 2002 and 2011.

Patrons at the International Cuisine Festival in Painesville, Ohio were treated to an interesting sight this past weekend as an Ohio couple served out their kiddie pool sentence--a wonderful example of judicial discretion at work.

Now, what exactly does a kiddie pool sentence entail?

Chilling out in a plastic turquoise pool while passing out fliers.

Put a live puppy in the mail and you probably shouldn't expect to get it back.

Stacey Champion, the woman who attempted to mail a poodle from Minneapolis to Atlanta, will not be getting the animal back, according to the ruling of an administrative hearing officer.

Champion said that she was attempting to send the puppy to her 11-year-old son. She liked the idea that he would open the box and be surprised with a brand new puppy. If that package had ever made it to her son, it certainly would have been a surprise, though not the joyful kind. The box had no holes in it, no food, no water, and would have been transported in a freezing, non-pressurized cargo area.

It's not every day you hear that a cockfighting rooster kills a man. But for a California gambler, that's exactly what happened.

In a cockfight, roosters are armed with sharp blades to help them fight, but the blades often result in their death. This time one of those blades resulted in the death of Jose Luis Ochoa, the rooster's handler and a frequent participant in Bakersfield's illegal cockfighting rings. The man, killed by a rooster stabbing him in the calf, bled out within hours, reports NPR.

Man, and you thought fines were unreasonable in the U.S.? A court in China has announced that it is going to retry a farmer sentenced to life in prison for evading highway tolls. The case came under second review after public outcry over his harsh sentence.

According to the court, Shi Jianfeng committed fraud by avoiding highway tolls. Jianfeng apparently mounted fake military plates on his cars so he could bypass the tolls over 2,300 times, the Associated Press reports. Shi was convicted of driving through the tolls for eight months while running a business transporting gravel. The alleged violations added up to $560,000. That's a lot of tolls. He was fined an additional $302,000 for the violations.

Two tours of duty in Iraq didn't kill Thomas Towers, Jr., but a reckless driver did. On March 14, 2008, Towers' car was hit by another, driven by Andrew Gaudioso, who was found to have drugs in his system. After 4 months in a coma, Gaudioso was charged with vehicular homicide. Before the case could go to trial, the defense, prosecution and family of Thomas Towers reached an unusual plea deal.

Andrew Gaudioso was able to evade prison, but only if he agreed to a long probation with a twist, reports the St. Petersburg Times. Gaudioso was looking at an 8-year prison sentence, but Tower's, father, Thomas Sr., objected. "I want him to apologize to my family -- every week," Towers remembers telling the assistant state attorney. "I want him to remember, for the rest of his life, that he killed my son."

Cruel and unusual punishment is forbidden by the Eight Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Is the following story cruel and unusual, or creative and justified? You be the judge.

Daniel Mireles and his wife Eloise were convicted of stealing from the Harris County Texas crime victims fund. Eloise Mireles was a public employee and the brains behind the scheme, reports TalkLeft.com. The judge in their case must have spent some real time thinking about how best to punish the Mireleses, because the terms of probation sound like something right out of the Scarlet Letter. As a condition of avoiding a prison sentence, they were given rather uncommon terms of parole. In addition to community service, Daniel and Eloise Mireles will each have to stand in the road with a large sign detailing everything they did.

It is that time of year again, back to school. How can you tell? Increased traffic, sales at Staples, stressed kids and happy parents. Oh, and homework. Here is a case of homework in a very unusual arena. A Nevada judge has given homework to a defendant who came before him on a charge of selling pot. The defendant, 25 year-old Matthew Palazzolo, was busted for selling the drug he grew himself after obtaining a valid medical marijuana card. The judge found this situation ludicrous and wants Palazzolo to write all about it.

Judge Dave Gamble has ordered Palazzolo write an essay on the "nonsensical character" of the medical marijuana laws in the neighboring state of California, according to the Associated Press. Palazzolo had pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate the Uniform Controlled Substances Act. He was arrested outside a casino in Stateline, NV in February after he sold a quarter-pound of pot to an informant for $1,060.