This is not an exaggeration. This is a direct quote from a local news story about a really bad man who got caught doing really bad things. Someone, please, how we got from 360 to 25?!
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There are a lot of rules around how sentencing works.
The most likely case is that the judge sentenced him to a whole bunch of jail sentences (for each crime) served “*consecutively*” – that is to say, one after the other – but the law actually specifies that in this specific case they are *supposed* to be served “concurrently” – that is to say, he’s in prison for all of them at the same time, so only the longest time matters – and the longest of the individual sentences is 25 years.
Depends on your country. Some places have laws that limit the maximum penalty to 25 years in jail.
There is no possible way to know what happened there without a lot more information. Mainly the state it happened in, the crimes they were convicted of, and the sentencing order by the judge. Otherwise any answer would just be speculation about concurrent sentences or limitations to sentence length, or possible appeals on constitutional grounds.
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I think I know which news story you mean. Is it the Chesapeake thing? If so, you’re missing a detail. He wasn’t sentenced to 360 years, but to 25 years with an additional 335 years suspended. The judge didn’t try to give him an actual 360-year sentence.
As far as I know, this means that he’ll be on probation for the rest of the time, and will only have to go to prison if he breaks the terms of his probation.
It depends on the state. In Arkansas, for example, you generally serve 2 months for each year you’re sentenced. 36 month sentence = 6 months incarceration, and then 30 months of parole.
Despite people saying certain areas are “soft on crime,” almost all of our county jails and state prisons are at capacity or overflowing, so they basically have to triage who stays and who goes based on severity of charges, flight risk, violence, etc.
First and foremost – never take what you read in a paper or in the mediaas unadorned, accurate truth. Journalists are good at reporting stuff, but not always so good at understanding it well enough to not make errors. I genuinely have yet to read a report on anything I knew about first hand, that wasn’t significantly inaccurate and misleading. Having said that…
One possibility is that someone has been sentenced for multiple offences, the sentences to run concurrently (alongside each other), the longest sentence is 25 years, and the total time is 360 years.
Why that would happen is basically that the court has decided that serving 25 years is appropriate – but they’re making sure that he WILL serve it, even if half a dozen or more of the sentences are overturned – he still has to serve the time for the ones that aren’t overturned.
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There are numerous credits you can get in prison for good behavior, program completion, and for working. Additionally, you are eligible for release on parole after you serve a certain percentage of the sentence. This all varies state to state and at the federal level.
It’s honestly hard to give a good answer without the offenses, state, and court order.
In general, you serve the longest time from the sentence given for one act. So if you kill someone during a robbery using a stolen car, you are sentenced for the murder (say 25 years) and the robbery (10 years) and the car theft (5 years). Total 40 years. But the murder sentence is longer, so that’s the one that gets served. The car theft sentence is still being served, but at the same time as the murder sentence.
Consecutive sentences usually come into play when there’s been, say, serial murders. Not the same act, so the sentences become consecutive instead of concurrent.
Oversimplified, but that’s the gist.
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