BELLEVILLE, Ill. – With help from a judge, a man being sentenced to five years in prison also got a life partner.
After sentencing 23-year-old David Kite on Wednesday to prison for stealing a lawnmower from a home, St. Clair County Circuit Judge John Baricevic obliged Kite’s request to marry girlfriend Victoria Smith in the same courtroom.
The groom sported an orange jumpsuit, shackles and handcuffs during the five-minute civil ceremony; the bride had on a T-shirt and sweat pants.
A day later, Baricevic described the short ceremony as polite, with no visible grudge toward him by the lovestruck man he’d just punished with prison.
“If there’s any resentment, you’d have to ask the other guy,” Baricevic said. “Judges in all states marry people. Obviously, the situation involved here was not a usual one. It’s very unique.”
And it developed fast.
Kite had just pleaded guilty to a felony theft count and was ordered imprisoned when Kite asked for a furlough to marry Smith, promising to surrender to begin serving his sentence afterward. A prosecutor objected, and Baricevic denied the request.
“Usually to grant a furlough, it has to be an emergency situation. I didn’t think marriage was,” the judge said.
Moments later, Kite and Smith said they wanted to get married immediately.
So with Kite in a holdover cell, Smith hustled to the county clerk’s office and filled out a marriage license the clerk brought over for Kite to sign.
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