I just heard on the TV that someone got life in prison plus 47 years. I never understood this. Life in prison is life in prison so what does this mean when they get additional time on top of life in prison?
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Also, if you’re the family of murder victim number 8 of 20 you’re still going to care if they get charged for the murder of your family member and not just the first two. It’s justice for everyone, not just the first victim or two.
I used to think it meant they would be buried at the prison for the remainder of their time, like a punishment for the soul.
A simple way to view it is that justice has to be done. For every crime committed, there must be a sentence. If someone steals 10 pieces of candy from 10 stores there are 10 charges that must be addressed. The only way around this is through plea negotiations.
In the US, life sentences are given for things like murder, so if tou combine that with another crime(s) that gives you life plus whatever else, so that if the murder is overturned then you still have to serve the time fo me the other crime
Where I’m from (Canada), two things put you in prison for life: first degree murder and high treason. Canada doesn’t actually have life imprisonment however, the maximum sentence is “life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years” since the supreme court says life imprisonment is cruel and unusual punishment. That being said you can only be given one life sentence and are essentially guaranteed to be able to apply for parole after 25 years at most.
About a dozen people have been sentenced to no chance of parole for 40, 50, 70, or 75 years on several counts of first degree murder, but our supreme court ruled against this calling it cruel and unusual punishment, and everyone was then allowed to apply for parole 25 years after imprisonment.
A life sentence varies but is generally 15 to 25 years. You’ll sometimes hear that somebody got three consecutive life sentences, or roughly 60 years
Someone getting life and also 47 years is probably serving those concurrently. That means that if they somehow managed to prove innocence of the charge that got them life, they’ll still be locked up for 47 years, and vice versa. You can find people serving multiple life sentences. In the US, that means they need to be proven innocent of all of the charges, otherwise they’re still doing life.
This concept is more relevant for someone being convicted of multiple crimes not worth life sentences. If a guy is convicted of 3 crimes each worth 3 years, they might think it’s worth guaranteeing 3 years instead of maybe getting them in for 9.
They count each individual conviction and each one has its own number of years attached. Just because one crime gets a life sentence doesn’t mean they just write off the others.
This is important because each crime needs to be paid for, but also because any one of them could be overturned and they don’t want to have to go back and say “well he got off for the murder but now we need to figure out what he owes for the other crimes.”
Account for each of them up front and you know exactly where you stand if any is ever overturned.
The thing is that life in prison does *not* mean they necessarily spend the *rest* of their life in prison. In some cases the sentence is overturned, in other cases the ‘life’ sentence is actually a set number of years.
In any case, it’s important that each charge is represented. Some times sentences can be run concurrent (meaning that if they are doing 10 years + 15 years + 5 months they only do 15 years, because that covers the 10 years and the 5 months *concurrent*) or consecutively (meaning one after the other – the above example would result in them serving 25 years and 5 months) or a mix… but each one is still metered out so there is no confusion.
The phrase “life sentence” means different things in different jurisdictions. A typical definition is 20 years, not literally your entire life.
In some countries, life in prison can be only 20 years Max. While sure, this doesn’t make sense, given you’d assume life in prison is life in prison, some countries have different definitions of this.
So say you’re given life in a country where life is 20 years, and gets an additional 47 years, that’s 67 years.
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