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Examining life sentences (and their connnection to death) in America's heartland

By Douglas A. Berman

Today's Des Moines Register has this interesting article, headlined "In Iowa prisons, life means life." Here are a few excerpts: Iowa is one of the most difficult states in the nation for an inmate serving a life sentence to gain release, according to a study issued last month by the Sentencing Project, a Washington advocacy group. Iowa's three most recent governors have commuted life sentences only nine times in 26 years. At the same time, the population of lifers in Iowa's prison system has risen dramatically, from 162 inmates in 1983 to 617 today, an increase of 281 percent. Critics want to reduce that number, citing the high cost in dollars - nearly $19 million a year to house current lifers - and in lost human potential. But that notion threatens to disturb Iowa's uneasy truce over capital punishment: Iowa lawmakers have repeatedly rejected the death penalty, but only because "life means life" for the most serious crimes, noted Corwin Ritchie, executive director of the Iowa County Attorneys Association...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 16, 2009 (boomark / email).