Reports on the Ron Jeremy trial state he could be sentenced to between 250 years to life in jail. This seems nonsensical considering 250 years more than amounts to life in jail.
Why not just sentence him to the rest of his natural life in jail if found guilty. What’s the benefit of considering an incredibly long and impossible sentence?
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He is being charged with multiple crimes, each will have their own sentence. He is being tried by the state of California, and I am unsure if their sentences would run concurrently or not.
Note that while most criminal courts in the US are fairly similar in nature, there is no one “system.” Each state has their own set of criminal law and their own justice system which are independent of each other. While they all must abide by a relatively few constitutional restrictions they are very much free to operate as the state wishes.
It’s kind of like selling a used car. You always ask a higher price than what you’d really want for it (sentence to more years in prison than the minimum the court feels they deserve). That way, if the buyer talks you down (the convicted gets paroled or reduced sentence) both parties (the court and the prison system) are satisfied with the final price (sentence)
Sentences can be appealed or shortened while the person is in prison. Sometimes the longer the sentence is at sentencing, the more likely the final, actual amount of time served post-appeals and post-shortenings will be a still-appropriate length.
For instance: if someone is given multiple life sentences, and is able to appeal one of them due to a technicality, they will still have some remaining life sentences keeping them in prison.
Think of it like money.
If you go to a restaurant and eat a $250 meal consisting of appetizers, drinks, 3 courses and dessert….you don’t get to say “Yeah, I’m minimum wage, here’s 30 bucks”
If someone is convicted of crimes with sentencing guidelines that add up to 250 years, the judge isn’t gonna say “Meh, he doesn’t look like he’s gonna last more than 30 years. I’ll sentence him to that.”
Let’s say that you are arrested on charge of 4 murders. Each of which have a life sentences on it with a mininum of 10 year without parole (some type of murder can have 25 year without parole). During the trial, there isn’t enough evidence to convict you of 1 of the 4 murders, so you are sentenced for 3 life sentences. This mean that you stay in prison for life obviously, but you can get out on parole (aka with limitation) after 3 x 10 years = 30 years. Now after 10 years in prison, there is some evidence found that you didn’t commit one of the other two murders. So now you still have life in prison, but you have 20 years only before parole is available.
Rule 2 forbids legal questions.
Better to r/ask_lawyers or r/askanamerican.
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