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Age, health, and life sentences...

radcen

radcen

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Age, health, and life sentences...

Scenario: A man is 75 years old. He has just been convicted of murder. He has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. But... he also has terminal cancer and has been legitimately diagnosed with no more than six months to live, and the doctors say that the last three months will probably be bedridden in a hospital.

What do you/we do?

Do we still send him to prison? Do we sentence him to house arrest? Do we let it go?

What do you think?
 
He is either in prison or in the hospital. Preferably a prison hospital if it has the resources, which it probably doesn't.

The fact of the matter is if you commit a horrible crime near the end of your life you ARE getting off easy. But that's life.
 
BrewerBob said:
He is either in prison or in the hospital. Preferably a prison hospital if it has the resources, which it probably doesn't.

The fact of the matter is if you commit a horrible crime near the end of your life you ARE getting off easy. But that's life.
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Personally, I don't disagree, but I could see some people saying let it go because it'd be seriously expensive for the taxpayers for just a few months.
 
BrewerBob said:
He is either in prison or in the hospital. Preferably a prison hospital if it has the resources, which it probably doesn't.

The fact of the matter is if you commit a horrible crime near the end of your life you ARE getting off easy. But that's life.
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A lot of truth to that.
 
radcen said:
Personally, I don't disagree, but I could see some people saying let it go because it'd be seriously expensive for the taxpayers for just a few months.
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The house arrest sounds like a way partially around that but it depends and well what if he didn't have a house.
 
we all know the 'justice' system is built on revenge, so why not a nice medieval burning at the stake
 
radcen said:
Personally, I don't disagree, but I could see some people saying let it go because it'd be seriously expensive for the taxpayers for just a few months.
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There are certainly crimes that I would say, "just let it go" with the terminal criminal you have described. But murder isn't among them.
 
Prison.

He did the crime, he can do the time...whatever little may be left.

After all, wasn't he convicted and sentenced for life? :shrug:
 
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radcen said:
Age, health, and life sentences...

Scenario: A man is 75 years old. He has just been convicted of murder. He has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. But... he also has terminal cancer and has been legitimately diagnosed with no more than six months to live, and the doctors say that the last three months will probably be bedridden in a hospital.

What do you/we do?

Do we still send him to prison? Do we sentence him to house arrest? Do we let it go?

What do you think?
Click to expand...

We simply do not have a good way to deal with this scenario as a standard in law, and we may not want one.

If there is any good news, we still do have some degree of judicial reason and leeway. But that would come down to the nature of the crime, the convicted's criminal history, and the defense argument during the sentencing stage after guilt has been established.

In my opinion house arrest may be the least costly path for the state / municipality to take. But it would be foolish to force that standard, for the listed factors.
 
If he isn't keep in prison (or under guard at a hospital)... what if he does it again? After all he may well think he has nothing to lose at this point....
 
radcen said:
Age, health, and life sentences...

Scenario: A man is 75 years old. He has just been convicted of murder. He has been sentenced to life in prison without parole. But... he also has terminal cancer and has been legitimately diagnosed with no more than six months to live, and the doctors say that the last three months will probably be bedridden in a hospital.

What do you/we do?

Do we still send him to prison? Do we sentence him to house arrest? Do we let it go?

What do you think?
Click to expand...
We had a somewhat similar (very poignant) situation in a nearby suburb, several years back.

An older guy rushed a local police station at 1:30A with a gun, which he trained on the officer at the front desk. The assailant never got a round off, and the officer subsequently fired, dropping the subject, but not killing him. In the injured subject's pocket was a note apologizing for his actions, claiming he intentionally didn't fire and didn't want to hurt anyone, but explaining he had terminal cancer, tried to earlier commit suicide, but couldn't summon the courage to pull-it off himself. So he came-up with the idea of suicide by cop. And he closed the note again apologizing for putting the officers through the incident. Obviously, he expected his letter would be read posthumously.

But by picking 1:30A on a weekday in a small high-end suburb, there was no activity in the public area of the station, and only one copper at the desk - so he never faced the volley of return fire he expected. He was later sentenced to quite a few years, I don't remember how many, and I lost track of the case after sentencing. It was a terribly sad story.
 
Chomsky said:
We had a somewhat similar (very poignant) situation in a nearby suburb, several years back.

An older guy rushed a local police station at 1:30A with a gun, which he trained on the officer at the front desk. The assailant never got a round off, and the officer subsequently fired, dropping the subject, but not killing him. In the injured subject's pocket was a note apologizing for his actions, claiming he intentionally didn't fire and didn't want to hurt anyone, but explaining he had terminal cancer, tried to earlier commit suicide, but couldn't summon the courage to pull-it off himself. So he came-up with the idea of suicide by cop. And he closed the note again apologizing for putting the officers through the incident. Obviously, he expected his letter would be read posthumously.

But by picking 1:30A on a weekday in a small high-end suburb, there was no activity in the public area of the station, and only one copper at the desk - so he never faced the volley of return fire he expected. He was later sentenced to quite a few years, I don't remember how many, and I lost track of the case after sentencing. It was a terribly sad story.
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That's actually very sad. :(
 
radcen said:
What do you/we do?

Do we still send him to prison? Do we sentence him to house arrest? Do we let it go?

What do you think?
Click to expand...

I think we can file this under "acts of God that are out of our control".

One thing I don't get is why so many believe that if you die instead of going to prison, you got off easy? Yeah prison sucks but isn't facing your own mortality way more intense, especially if you were a murdering bastard?

And if death isn't the end then maybe he'll still have to deal with his heinous act. Who knows.

All I'm saying is that people are making a lot of assumptions here.
 
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