Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

NY Times op-ed spotlights extreme jury sentences in Mississippi

By Douglas A. Berman

Today's New York Times includes this remarkable op-ed by Bob Herbert concerning a pair of extreme sentences in Mississippi.  The piece is headlined "So Utterly Inhumane, and here are excerpts: You have to believe that somebody really had it in for the Scott sisters, Jamie and Gladys.  They have always insisted that they had nothing to do with a robbery that occurred near the small town of Forest, Miss., on Christmas Eve in 1993.  It was not the kind of crime to cause a stir.  No one was hurt and perhaps $11 was taken. Jamie was 21 at the time and Gladys just 19.  But what has happened to them takes your breath away.  They were convicted by a jury and handed the most draconian sentences imaginable ? short of the death penalty. Each was sentenced to two consecutive life terms in state prison, and they have been imprisoned ever since...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 12, 2010 (boomark / email).