someone please bless me with some knowlwdge on this subject. my fiance is facing 17 years to life. i know hes considered a lifer, but does the fact that its a 17 year to life sentence mean that after 17 years hell be able to come home, or will he have to spend the rest of his life in prison. please help, and all responses are greatly appreciated. thank you.

I believe that after he serves 17 years he goes up for parole and he can either be approved or denied.

After 17 years he is eligible to be in front of the parole board. It may take another couple of years for him to actually get a parole date. The parole board will place certain criteria upon him that they will want him to complete. What I have seen with the parole board is regardless of how much the inmate attempts to be in compliance with the board's recommendation they are never satisfied.

He just needs to keep complying. At times he will leave these hearings very discouraged. Encourage him to stay on track and eventually he should get a parole date. It will take time.

someone please bless me with some knowlwdge on this subject. my fiance is facing 17 years to life. i know hes considered a lifer, but does the fact that its a 17 year to life sentence mean that after 17 years hell be able to come home, or will he have to spend the rest of his life in prison. please help, and all responses are greatly appreciated. thank you.

My husband is in for 15-life and has done 21 years as of this coming August. The LIFE part of it is what is indeterminate. Indeterminate sentencing inmates (Lifers) have to take responsibility for their lives because their release dates depend, in part, on how they behave while in prison and on improvements they make while in prison. It sucks, but, it's true....everything he does from this point on WILL matter!

I believe after he does a third of his sentence, he can start applying for parole. My fiancee got 25-life and has been elgible since 1997. He has been in for 24 years and this August will be his 4th parole hearing.

I researched it and stand corrected. Kittie is right. My fiancee was sentenced under the "old sentencing guidelines". Now lifers must do their minimum before they can become elgible for parole...wow...things have really changed!...

If your man is sentenced to 17 to life now, then you can hope that by the time he's served his 17, thre will have been a swing back for the better in corrections so that he'll get his parole the first time. As it stands now, if he's got 17 to life, he'll probably serve more than the 17 because with the tough on crime policies, they just seem to want to keep them past their minimum times no matter what they've done to better themselves.

You two aren't going to do 17 years, though. You'll do one day---today-----one day at a time. Don't let yourself think of the whole 17. You never know what could happen to shorten or maybe even overturn the sentence. Just hang in there and do today. You'll stress and burn out if you keep looking at the whole 17 years.

My guy has been down for 27 years this coming November on a 25 to life sentence. He went before the board in 2002 and was put off for 4 years, so he goes back before the board in August 2006. I've heard there's some law that says if he was convicted as a minor, they can't hold him past his minimum time. Eventually the jail house lawyers will tell us what it is and we may be able to get him released. Until then, we'll just deal with it one day at a time.