Old law may curb life sentences

Our Voice

By: Hickory Daily Record Editorial | Hickory Daily Record
Published: October 11, 2009

The General Assembly should take note: Old laws eventually come home to roost, and they may not accomplish what lawmakers intended.

A state Supreme Court ruling left standing an old law that defined a life sentence as 80 years. That was done to ensure there were no doubts as to how long an inmate must stay in prison if given a life sentence. The law didn't say "until death."

Now, dozens of inmates given life sentences years ago could be freed.

Here's how The Associated Press described the scenario: Bobby Bowden, a North Carolina inmate convicted of two murders, had argued that a law adopted in 1974 clearly defined life sentences as just 80 years. Bowden asserted that statute, combined with good conduct credits inmates now accrue, means his life sentence for murder is complete.

The court of appeals sided with Bowden, and the state attorney general appealed. The state said the law is ambiguous and that it likely applied only for purposes of parole eligibility. An attorney for Bowden called that argument "legal gymnastics."

The statute, which was in place for several years in the 1970s, says: "A sentence of life imprisonment shall be considered as a sentence of imprisonment for a term of 80 years in the state's prison."

Justices repeatedly asked the state's attorneys last month how that language could be considered ambiguous.

Prison officials say the case could affect some 120 inmates sentenced when the law was in place. Bowden has been denied parole every year since 1987.

Justices, in a one-page statement, unanimously confirmed the court of appeals decision.

Bowden was convicted in 1975 and initially sentenced to death. The Supreme Court later took him off death row, sending the case back to Cumberland County. Bowden got concurrent life sentences. That means he serves them simultaneously rather than one after another.

Friday's decision puts Bowden's case back in a Cumberland County court, which will determine how many sentence reduction credits Bowden can receive and how those credits are applied, The AP reported.

So, Bowden and other inmates just may be able to walk out of prison, their sentences fulfilled.

If the state wants a life sentence to mean incarceration until death, then the law must be rewritten.

Changing the law will not affect Bowden's case and those like it, however.

It might be a good idea to scrutinize other old laws to avoid more surprises in the future.