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Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison either for the rest of their natural lives or until pardoned, paroled or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit murder, apostasy, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, child rape, espionage, treason, high treason, drug dealing, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe cases of fraud, severe cases of financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage in English law, and aggravated cases of arson, kidnapping, burglary, or robbery which result in death or grievous bodily harm, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and in certain cases genocide, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, certain war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offenses causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884.
In the United States, habitual offender laws were first implemented on March 7, 1994, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require both a severe violent felony and two other previous convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those convicted of more than two serious crimes.
Attempted murder is a crime of attempt in various jurisdictions.
Mandatory sentence requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and 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.
Brandon Wade Hein was sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole for his involvement in the 1995 stabbing murder of 16-year-old Jimmy Farris, the son of a Los Angeles Police Department officer. Hein and two other youths who were present when the murder took place, as well as the actual killer, and were convicted under the felony murder rule because the murder was committed during the course of a felony – the attempted robbery of marijuana kept for sale by Farris's friend, Michael McLoren. Under the felony murder rule, any participant in a felony is criminally responsible for any death that occurs during its commission. In 2009, Hein's life sentence was commuted to 29 years to life.
William James Bosket Jr. is an American convicted murderer, whose numerous crimes committed while he was still a minor led to a change in New York state law, so that juveniles as young as 13 could be tried as an adult for murder and would face the same penalties. He has been in either prison or reformatories for all but 18 months since 1971, and has spent all but 100 days of his adult life in custody. He is currently serving a sentence of 82 years to life at Five Points Correctional Facility.
This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.
The Pettingill family is a Melbourne-based criminal family, headed by matriarch Kath Pettingill. Family members have many convictions for criminal offences including drug trafficking, arms dealing and armed robberies.
The Trinitarios is a Hispanic street gang founded by Dominicans in New York City, New York in 1993.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society.
Regina v Armel Gnango[2011] UKSC 59 is the leading English criminal law case on the interaction of joint enterprise, transferred malice, and exemption from criminal liability where a party to what would normally be a crime is the victim of it. The Supreme Court held, restoring Gnango's conviction for the murder of Magda Pniewska, that he was guilty of murder notwithstanding the fact that he had not fired the shot which killed Pniewska during the shoot out which led to her death, and that the fatal shot had been fired by his opponent in an attempt to kill him. The judgment of the Supreme Court has been criticised over the alleged extent to which it was designed to mollify public opinion, and in the context of debates over the nature of the doctrine of joint enterprise.
S v Mokgethi en Andere is an important case in South African law, with the court's determination that, in general, a perpetrator's action, which is a sine qua non for the death of the deceased, is too remote from the result to give rise to criminal liability if
- a failure on the part of the deceased to obtain medical or similar advice, to undergo treatment or to follow instructions as to his treatment is the immediate cause of his death;
- the wounding was not in itself lethal or was no longer lethal at the relevant time; and
- such failure was relatively unreasonable: that is, unreasonable also taking into account the characteristics, convictions, etc., of the deceased.
In S v Grobler en 'n Ander (1966), an important case in South African criminal procedure, the first appellant had entered a café with a pistol in his hand and threatened the café owner's daughter-in-law. The owner's son grappled with the first appellant, who had fired two shots at him, one in his thigh and the other at the back of his head.
In S v Prins en 'n Ander, an important case in South African criminal procedure, the two appellants had been charged with both murder and robbery. They had attacked the complainant with a rake and he had died 9 days later from the injuries sustained from the attack. After the assault, they had robbed him.
S v Dlamini was a South African court case. The central question was of duplication of convictions.
Callan v Ireland& The Attorney General,[2013] IESC 35; [2013] IR 267; [2013] ILRM 257, was an Irish Supreme Court case which ruled on the decision to commute the sentence of death imposed on Callan to penal servitude for 40 years without allowing for remission. Noel Callan had been sentenced to death in 1985 but had his sentence commuted to 40 years of penal servitude by the President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery. The High Court rejected Callan's appeal that he was eligible for remission. Callan then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court found that Callan was indeed serving imprisonment and so by law could request remission of his penalty.
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.
Mickey Borgfjord Larsen was a Danish outlaw biker, gangster and member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club.
Lars Harnes is a Norwegian outlaw biker, gangster and senior member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club.
The Cannonball Motorcycle Club (CMC) is an outlaw motorcycle club in Finland and Estonia. Founded in Helsinki in 1991, the club has eleven chapters and a membership of over two-hundred. Cannonball MC is designated an organized crime group by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI).
References
- S v Benjamin en 'n Ander 1980 (1) SA 950 (A)