I’ve heard accounts of prisoners being sentenced to consecutive life sentences. Regardless of the number of life sentences, the person will still be serving for the one life they’ve got, right?. Are there different legal implications behind multiple sentences?
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For one thing, its a matter of principle that if someone is convicted for a crime, they have to be given a sentence for it.
Now, prosecutors will sometimes decide to drop lesser charges to pursue higher ones, but that all gets settled before trial starts. So if a guy breaks into a house and murders someone, the prosecutors very well might focus on the murder charge and not the breaking and entering. If they get him for murder, it doesn’t matter whether or not he goes away for an extra 6 months or year for B&E. It might mean holding another trial for a guy who is never getting out anyway.
But also, life sentences don’t mean prison for life. After all, if it did, then there would be no need to distinguish between a life sentence and a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Different states and countries have different standards but in many, a life sentence can mean a term of 20 or 25 years before one is eligible for parole. In fact, a life sentence is better understood as an “as much as life sentence”.
So in sentencing someone to consecutive life sentences, you ensure that they will be in prison more or less until they die, regardless of how good their behavior in prison is. They could serve 20 years on a life sentence and get parole (though if you have multiple life sentences you probably wouldn’t bother to go through the parole process on one of them), and they’re still on the hook for another.
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