A very good, bold editorial from the SF Chronicle.... Q


EDITORIAL

Doors closing for lifers -- again

Monday, October 17, 2005


EARLIER THIS YEAR, we commended Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for being willing to grant parole to a greater number of the state's expanding lifer population than his predecessors.

In 2004, he agreed to release 73 lifers recommended for parole by the Board of Prison Terms, recently renamed the Board of Parole Hearings. Although still a tiny fraction of the lifer population, in a single year Schwarzenegger released 12 times more of them than Gov. Gray Davis did during his five years in office. Most had been convicted of first- or second-degree murder decades earlier.


Full text here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/17/EDGDKF8ODH1.DTL

You know I keep hearing about all these life sentences for people who have commited murder ( first or second) and find it so hard to understand why my fiance is serving a life sentence for attempted murder. Hard to swallow when he could have taken a deal for 12 years been out in about 6 (that would have been 1998) instead here we are in 2005 almost 2006. Man ol' man...