>>/41744/
For theft and animal torture.
Here are the penalties one can get here:
- warning (I think it can be spoken or written, then the latter is more strict);
- probation (for a certain duration if the perp commits another crime that will be measured more strictly);
- fine;
- public work (without pay) - depending on the amount this can be considered less harsh than paying a fine, sometimes fines can be cleared with public work, or vice versa I think - but one can choose to go to prison instead (one day equals to certain amount of HUF) as well;
- suspended prison;
- prison - this has three levels of harshness (beside the duration) which I can't translate but unrelated our topic anyway.
The perpetrator in this case is a public worker who earns miserable amount of money (less than minimum wage), he has three children, no wife (so it is considered he raises his kid from his wage alone - despite he may have a partner). The judge could have issued public work as a punishment, so he would do the same job without a wage in return, but then how he will feed his kids? Could have issued a fine, but they examined if he can pay back the peacock's value, he was unable to, so he couldn't have settled the fine either. Assuming the judge followed similar logic, he couldn't penalize him with probation, which would be just too light. On top of this the case found it's way to the media, so not just in that little town, but all over Hungary many people got riled up because of this. So I believe the judge then moved to the harsher punishments, and issued the suspended prison, where the minimum amount is a 2 years sentence.
Considering the perp has no criminal record, it's a safe bet that no crime will follow this one. He can continue to work, and earn money, he just has to behave (also he has to report to a "patron", a help helper who talks with him about how he is doing, or what he can change in his life to better it, etc - this maybe once a month). So all in all the judge found a way that satisfied everyone. Well I think at least.