Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted criminals are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives. Crimes that warrant life imprisonment are usually violent and/or dangerous. Examples of crimes that result in life sentences are murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, Illegal drug trade, Drug prohibition, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated Property damage, arson, hate crime, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide.
Carlie's Law was a bill introduced in the United States Congress by Representative Katherine Harris (R-FL), with the support of Nick Lampson (D-TX) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), in response to the kidnapping, rape and murder of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia by Joseph P. Smith in Florida in February 2004. Smith was on probation at the time of Brucia's murder, having been released from state prison thirteen months prior.
In the United States, habitual offender laws have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who is convicted of an offense and who has one or two other previous serious convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison, with or without parole depending on the jurisdiction. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those who continue to commit offenses after being convicted of one or two serious crimes.
Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term of imprisonment for certain crimes, commonly serious or violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people who are convicted of certain serious and/or violent crimes, and require a prison sentence. Mandatory sentencing laws vary across nations; they are more prevalent in common law jurisdictions because civil law jurisdictions usually prescribe minimum and maximum sentences for every type of crime in explicit laws.
Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping, the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) —which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in the Missouri area in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Both series, which ran in papers across North America, described kidnapping as an existential threat to American life, a singular, growing crime wave in which no one was safe.
Jesse Joseph Tafero was convicted of murder and executed via electric chair in the U.S. state of Florida for the murders of 39-year-old Florida Highway Patrol officer Phillip A. Black and 39-year-old Ontario Provincial Police Corporal Donald Irwin, a visiting Canadian constable and friend of Black. The officers were killed during a traffic stop where Tafero, his wife Sunny Jacobs and their children were passengers. Tafero's execution was botched; his head burst into flames during the execution by electric chair. After Tafero's execution, the driver, Walter Rhodes, confessed to shooting the officers, but later retracted his testimony.
State of Nevada v. Orenthal James Simpson, et al, Case Number: 07C237890-4. was a criminal case prosecuted in 2007–2008 in the U.S. state of Nevada, primarily involving the retired American football player O. J. Simpson.
Ellis S. Rubin was an American attorney who gained national fame for handling a variety of highly publicized cases in a legal career that spanned 53 years. He was famous for his innovative defenses and his propensity for handling lost causes. Rubin won the first case in Florida using the “battered woman” defense. He also worked to free a man, James Joseph Richardson, who had been wrongly imprisoned for 21 years for fatally poisoning his seven children, and created the nymphomania defense in a case involving prostitution.
In the United States, life imprisonment is the most severe punishment provided by law in states with no valid capital punishment statute, and second-most in those with a valid statute. According to a 2013 study, 1 of every 2 000 inhabitants of the U.S. were imprisoned for life as of 2012.
Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips is an American who was convicted of murder as a child. In November 1998, when he was 14 years old, Phillips killed Maddie Clifton, his 8-year-old friend and neighbor. The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Phillips stated that he killed Clifton to stop her from crying after she was accidentally struck with a baseball while they were playing, and that he feared punishment from his abusive father. Although elements of Phillips's story are disputed, officials who were involved in his prosecution have subsequently expressed contrition over the severity of his sentence. In 2017, Phillips was re-sentenced to life in prison on appeal, but he has been eligible for re-sentencing as of 2023.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: "[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb..." The four essential protections included are prohibitions against, for the same offense:
Terry Anthony Blair is an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, though investigators believe he may have additional unidentified victims.
Nathaniel R. Brazill is an American man who, at age 13, fatally shot one of his schoolteachers, Barry Grunow, at Lake Worth Middle School in Lake Worth, Florida. Brazill was subsequently convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that juvenile offenders cannot be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for non-homicide offenses.
Joel T. Lazarus was a Florida prosecutor and later a circuit judge.
Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–1 ruling, applied the rule of Ring v. Arizona to the Florida capital sentencing scheme, holding that the Sixth Amendment requires a jury to find the aggravating factors necessary for imposing the death penalty. In Florida, under a 2013 statute, the jury made recommendations but the judge decided the facts.
On June 18, 2018, 20-year-old American rapper and singer-songwriter Jahseh Dwayne Ricardo Onfroy, known professionally as XXXTentacion, was murdered in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Onfroy was fatally shot by 22-year-old Michael Boatwright after being robbed in his car by Boatwright and his accomplices Trayvon Newsome, Dedrick Williams, and Robert Allen outside RIVA Motorsports, an upscale seller of motorcycles and watercraft in Deerfield Beach. Authorities charged the four men with first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.
United States v. Haymond, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), is a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence for certain sex offenses committed by federal supervised releases under 18 U.S.C. § 3583(k) as unconstitutional unless the charges are proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan joined Gorsuch's plurality opinion, while Breyer provided the necessary fifth vote with his narrow concurrence that began by saying he agreed with much of Justice Alito's dissent, which was joined by Justices Roberts, Thomas, and Kavanaugh.
One-year-old Antonio Santiago was murdered on March 21, 2013, during an attempted robbery in Brunswick, Georgia, United States. As Santiago and his mother, Sherry West, were returning home from the post office, they were confronted by two youths, 15-year-old Dominique Lang and 17-year-old De'Marquise Elkins. Elkins, who had previously shot another victim he tried to rob, pointed a gun at West and demanded money. When she did not comply he fired two .22-caliber bullets, one of which grazed her head, and the other of which went through her leg. He then shot Santiago in the face, killing him. The murder received national as well as international attention due to the victim's young age.
Murder in Florida law constitutes the intentional killing, under circumstances defined by law, of people within or under the jurisdiction of the U.S. state of Florida.
