Judges ponder: Can you run 'em out on a rail?

In some countries, it's a fate worse than prison: banishment.

But in America's no longer so tightly knit communities, banishment is still sometimes used to get criminals out of more populous counties, often with the purpose of keeping them away from their victims.
Nut quote from an AP story:

It's a throwback to the dark ages," McNeill Stokes, the defense attorney who argued the case Monday, said in an interview. "The whole point behind this is zealous prosecutors wanting to get rid of problems in their counties."

Georgia judges have gotten around a Constitutional ban on banishment by allowing them to reside in one of the state's 159 counties. That's not so practical, however. Interestingly, DeKalb judges tend to banish criminals to Echols County, on the Florida border, ostensibly because it's such a Godforsaken place that they'll just leave the state instead. Reaction from Echols County is incredulous:

Q: When people think of a place that criminals might be banished to, the typical idea is a place like Siberia.

A: Well, I can tell you this much, there's not a better place to be banished to than Echols County. Some people think it's the jumping-off place; I think it's the jumping-on place. I wouldn't be anywhere else.

Prison is one consequence of breaking the law. The Georgia Supreme Court will now deliberate whether kicking somebody out of the state is an appropriate form of punishment -- or, in itself, illegal.