For example you’re reading about someone convicted of a crime and they get…2 consecutive life sentences.
Or where one guy gets 300 years and another gets 500 years?
I’m not sure of the additional years are meant as a punctuation to a sentence that reflects the crime, or isbthe judge/system trying to cover their bases in case of life extension becoming a thing? (And even if life extension is discovered, that person would be serving a sentence, and probably not eligible or rather able to get/receive whatever the extension would involve)
So, anyone wanna break this down for me?
*Not sure if my flair on this relates to economics, so putting it on other for now*
In: Other
The criminal justice system is based on the tenet of providing a fair hearing to everyone. This means there is a very strict set of rules and procedures that must be followed.
Sometimes these seem slightly absurd – it seems superfluous to be giving someone enough life sentences to last three lifetimes, however those same rules are also used to sentence the person who committed lower grades of crimes and may be looking at multiple convictions of months or years apiece, where how these are combined will make a genuine difference to that person.
So it ends up that the serious crimes do sometimes end up with absurd punishments, but they are just the result of following the same process everyone has the right to.
As for why you might end up with multiple different sentences (running consecutively or concurrently), this will come about where multiple different crimes and offenses have occurred – because these are different crimes, they will need to be considered separately to ensure that they do not influence each other. A serial killer may be suspected and tried for multiple murders – you want to ensure that they are tried and convicted fully for each one, and not have one botched investigation or unproven crime jeopardise a separate case that is a pretty safe conviction.
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