SANDWICH BOARD JUSTICE - JUDGE ORDERS THIEVES TO WEAR SIGNS

Now this is justice ... Hemingway style.

Don't shoplift in Alabama because Attalla City Judge Kenneth Robertson Jr. is laying down the law but good. Shoppers entering the Wal-Mart Supercenter in town recently witnessed two shoplifters standing outside with signs which read:

"I am a thief, I stole from Wal-Mart"

Gotta love it. Robertson Jr. ordered the two petty crooks to wear the signs for four hours each on two successive Saturdays.

"The only comments we've heard so far have been positive," store manager Neil Hawkins told the local press. "Most of them thought it was a good thing."

One of the shoplifters, Lisa King Fithian, 46, did the deed in order avoid a two-month jail sentence. Throughout the day, however, she maintained her innocence, saying her conviction was based on a misunderstanding.

Her story? She said she was taking a $7 item to the service desk because it would not scan. You never know ... Could be.

Outside the store, she said people who saw her wearing the sandwich board commented that the punishment was cruel.

Sandwich board justice isn't cruel. Chinese water torture is cruel. This is just funny.

Wal-Mart manager Hawkins doesn't think it's cruel in the least. "Maybe they'll think twice about doing it," he said.