Posted on 10/26/2007 3:24:07 PM PDT by SmithL
Lansing, Mich. (AP) -- The constitutional rights of more than 1,000 inmates serving life sentences in Michigan prisons have been violated ever since parole policies were toughened in the 1990s, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani said the cumulative effect of the parole changes violates the Constitution's ban on laws being applied retroactively.
She released her decision this week but has yet to decide what her ruling means for 1,000 to 1,200 Michigan prisoners sentenced before 1992 to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Since the early 1990s, the Michigan Parole Board has been less willing to release prisoners sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, adopting a "life means life" policy.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
This is the problem with the “life means life” alternative to the death penalty. No matter how many times you tell the courts that “life means life,” they have the last say, and you can be certain that they won’t agree.
That’s great. Let’s just let loose a bunch of lifers on the public.
This judge is nuts.
Maybe the public should start changing the rules of a Presidential appointment. It’s clear that neither side wants any justice. Clinton for his dimwit ways and Bush who didn’t do a thing about change.
They aren’t taking away their possibility of parole, though. They are just making it more difficult to get parole.
But as usual, the judges are in control, and no one can tell them anything.
This judge ought to dance the Tyburn Jig along with most of the lifers she is trying to dump on the public.
Only if she offered her own dwelling to serve as a halfway house for paroled lifers.
Which, of course, never crossed her mind.
Instead, that's something the rest of us will have to contend with -- while she gets off without accountability.
Judges are the enemy of a civilized society.
There’s no retroactive law, only an existing executive board, charged with granting parole, actually deciding to only release convicts that they believe no longer pose a serious danger to society.
Oh, gosh, what am I saying? That of course reduces the power of the federal courts, so therefore must be evil.
She'll be seeking to improve marshal protection of federal judges as soon as the parole board is forced to start releasing these lifers.
Exactly. She is making up the law as she goes along too.
I agree
The constitutional rights of more than 1,000 inmates serving life sentences in Michigan prisons have been violated ever since parole policies were toughened in the 1990s, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Marianne Battani said the cumulative effect of the parole changes violates the Constitution's ban on laws being applied retroactively.She's full of feces. The ban of ex post facto laws has nothing to do with this, because these inmates were convicted of crimes, of breaking laws that existed at the time they committed their crimes. Sentencing isn't about applying new laws. The incompetent partisan hack is all about inventing law ex cathedra and she should be debenched, disbarred, and sent packing.
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