4 ms·

> So too with the American tradition of supernatural punishment (ie "life plus twenty"). This isn't "supernatural punishment". It's sentencing for more than on

> So too with the American tradition of supernatural punishment (ie "life plus twenty"). This isn't "supernatural punishment". It's sentencing for more than one crime. Life, probably for murder, plus 20 for (say) armed robbery. It's not meaningless to tack on those 20 years. If the murder conviction is overturned, so is the life sentence, but not those 20 years, unless those convictions are also overturned.

sandworm101 8y ago
Super = above. Natural = life. US criminals are regularly sentenced to things beyond any concept of their natural lives. There is no legitimate purpose behind these. If a charge is later dropped or overturned, in a normal country, the person is re-sentenced accordingly. Stacking life upon life, decade upon decade, is just scoring points. In countries like Canada or the UK these would be deemed indeterminate sentences meant to put people away for life for crimes that would not normally warrant such treatment. Some of these (10,000+ years) read like something from a harry potter novel, not a realworld justice system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentenc...
- cgriswald 8y ago
  You're conflating so many things it is difficult to know how to respond. Life + 20 is a completely different class of sentencing than the ones in the Wikipedia list. I don't see a large distinction between re-sentencing or not. The end result should still be 20 years, no? "Life without parole + $X years" is functionally equivalent to a "whole life order" in the UK. The extremes in the list are of two classes: 1. Mass murderers, serial murders, or others who have gone on large crime sprees. These generally carry life sentences without parole. So, they cannot be indeterminate no matter how many years are tacked on, unless they have a successful appeal of all convictions that result in life sentences. 2. The indeterminate sentences you're talking about. Generally speaking, these are pretty egregious, violent crimes with many victims or the same victim over a long period of time. In many cases, the convicted could have received a life sentence, or one would have been mandated depending on the crime and the state. But this isn't common by any stretch, except on TV crime dramas. A problem is the giving of life sentences to nonviolent offenders (e.g. California's three strikes law). Also problematic is the stacking of charges to compel plea bargain, which is exacerbated by cumulative sentencing. But "Life + 20" is just, effectively, a life sentence with a different label.

sandworm101 8y ago

Super = above. Natural = life. US criminals are regularly sentenced to things beyond any concept of their natural lives. There is no legitimate purpose behind these. If a charge is later dropped or overturned, in a normal country, the person is re-sentenced accordingly. Stacking life upon life, decade upon decade, is just scoring points. In countries like Canada or the UK these would be deemed indeterminate sentences meant to put people away for life for crimes that would not normally warrant such treatment. Some of these (10,000+ years) read like something from a harry potter novel, not a realworld justice system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_prison_sentenc...

cgriswald 8y ago
You're conflating so many things it is difficult to know how to respond. Life + 20 is a completely different class of sentencing than the ones in the Wikipedia list. I don't see a large distinction between re-sentencing or not. The end result should still be 20 years, no? "Life without parole + $X years" is functionally equivalent to a "whole life order" in the UK. The extremes in the list are of two classes: 1. Mass murderers, serial murders, or others who have gone on large crime sprees. These generally carry life sentences without parole. So, they cannot be indeterminate no matter how many years are tacked on, unless they have a successful appeal of all convictions that result in life sentences. 2. The indeterminate sentences you're talking about. Generally speaking, these are pretty egregious, violent crimes with many victims or the same victim over a long period of time. In many cases, the convicted could have received a life sentence, or one would have been mandated depending on the crime and the state. But this isn't common by any stretch, except on TV crime dramas. A problem is the giving of life sentences to nonviolent offenders (e.g. California's three strikes law). Also problematic is the stacking of charges to compel plea bargain, which is exacerbated by cumulative sentencing. But "Life + 20" is just, effectively, a life sentence with a different label.