Commonwealth v. Payne

As punishment for Medicaid and Medicare fraud,1 the defendant Payne, a licensed physician, was ordered to make restitution of $40,000. At the time of sentencing, which had been postponed to enable Payne to raise the restitution money, the defendant failed to make restitution. He was, thereupon, sentenced to a year in a house of correction. The point raised on appeal is whether the Superior Court judge, having initially acquiesced in the idea that pun*554ishment other than imprisonment would satisfy society’s pe-nological objectives, could constitutionally impose a sentence of incarceration…