More on the Untimely Demise of the Life Sentence

Although it's not listed in the heading of this blog, one of the things I've written about is the erosion of any connection between crime and punishment: specifically, the demise of the death penalty, rapidly followed by the elimination of the life sentence. Today we shall look at one of my predictions, and see how it's played out.

In this 2012 post I wrote: "I venture to predict that no American criminal, sentenced after the Supreme Court lifted the ban on execution in 1976, will ever again serve over 30 years in prison for any heinous crime--and, for those committed to mental institutions for murder, I predict an even shorter timeframe. "

Enter the case of Patrick Lizotte, who shot his High School teacher in cold blood one March day of 1982, and was almost immediately taken into police custody for murder.

Patrick was sentenced to the incongruous "Two Consecutive Life Terms Without Possibility of Parole." I'm sorry, but such a ridiculous sentence brings to mind the medieval sentence of being hanged, drawn and quartered, and burned at the stake. What possible effect can a second consecutive life sentence have on anyone but Jesus?

Ironically, Patrick's prison term (delayed, of course, by the slow-grinding Wheels of Justice until 1986) did actually reach the 30 year mark after I wrote the above--but came to an abrupt end only months later after extensive legal proceedings that began with the Nevada Assembly Bill 267 of 2015, which “revises provisions concerning the sentencing and parole of persons convicted as an adult for a crime committed when the person was less than 18 years of age.” He is now on parole.

Thus, it was as I predicted: "The idea that a person still represents a threat to society as an eighty year old man, based on something he did as a teen, may not endure that long." Or in this case, only a fifty year old man. Had Patrick held off on committing the murder until his senior year--after he turned 18--he would probably still be in prison. But not for another thirty years.