Graffiti artists can keep their thumbs. Oscar wants their pride.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says he wants to put those who deface property in stocks where the public can "dab" paint on their faces as they sit with their heads and arms locked in place.

The city attorney's office is researching whether this would pass constitutional muster, Goodman said last week.

The verbose mayor swears he's serious.

"This would be a great deterrent," he said. "I want to see if it falls under cruel or unusual punishment. If not, great. Let's put it into effect."

When asked to compare this to his other medieval proposal of lopping off taggers' thumbs, the mayor dismissed his earlier comment.

"We were not going to cut thumbs off," he said. "That was to begin discussions on the issue."

For months, Goodman complained about the problem of taggers and proposed that removing a few thumbs in public would serve as a deterrent. Until now, he wouldn't back down from his proposal.

"Is he serious about putting them in stocks?" wondered Michael Green, professor of history at Community College of Southern Nevada. "I never expected Oscar to take a page from the pilgrims and Puritans."

Stocks are pivoting boards placed around the wrists and head, which are then locked in. Sometimes also locking in place feet, they were popular in medieval and puritanical times as a humiliating form of punishment.

Goodman explained that he would set out stocks in a public square -- he motioned to the rotunda at City Hall -- and have a bucket of paint nearby.

"It wouldn't be in the hot sun or anything," he said. "Let him sit out there for an hour, people can come by and put some paint on his head, and let him walk around like that for a week or two."

Goodman has pitched this idea at a number of public events over the past few weeks, though it appears few have taken him seriously. Met by an incredulous reporter last week, Goodman called over citizens passing through City Hall to pitch his idea.

"I liked the thumb idea better," said one pedestrian. "You have to do something to these idiots."

Another citizen called over by the mayor proclaimed the idea "hilarious. It'll teach these teenagers something."

One constitutional expert said the proposal would get about as far in court as, well, a man trying to run a marathon in stocks.

"Punishment of this sort, solely to embarrass and humiliate, violates the Eighth Amendment," Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor of law and political science at Duke University, wrote in an e-mail. "Putting people in stocks certainly is offensive to evolving standards of decency. And allowing people to put paint on individuals -- repeated batteries -- would never be tolerated in the courts."

Chemerinsky, who has written briefs about cruel and unusual punishments, said there is a sturdy case law that punishments can't be meted out solely to humiliate or degrade.

Green said statements like Goodman's have been a staple of his public persona since his days as a mob defense attorney.

"It makes him popular with voters," the CCSN professor said. "It creates an impression that there's no filtration system between his brain and his mouth. The problem with that theory is you don't become a successful criminal defense attorney that way."

Howard Rosenberg, a member of the university Board of Regents, dusted off the same response he gave to Goodman when the mayor pitched his thumb idea on a Reno television station in November.

"He really needs to use his head for something besides a hat rack," he said.

"Each time he's making one of these outrageous statements, it undercuts his effectiveness," Rosenberg said. "What we need to do is come up with answers. Deal with it as cultural phenomenon, a psychological phenomenon."

He proposed a penalty of 1,500 hours spent cleaning up graffiti for those caught tagging.

Clark County's Juvenile Justice Services has a program that requires taggers assigned to community service to paint over the work of their counterparts.

The penalty also can depend on the amount of damage a tagger does. It is a misdemeanor unless the damage is more than $5,000, according to a city spokeswoman.

A 19-year-old Reno man was sentenced Wednesday to two years in jail for repeated graffiti crimes.