My son doesn’t deserve a natural life sentence in prison

This was the twenty fifth Christmas of my son’s natural life sentence, a sentence he obtained in 1998 at 21 years previous for a non-fatal, no bodily /contact crime.

My son’s crime was theft with a firearm, which is taken into account a violent crime, accurately. Certainly, his crimes warranted a prison sentence however not a natural life sentence.

Natural life sentences are also known as demise by demise by incarceration. Under regular state sentencing pointers my son would have obtained between 9 and 16 years for his crimes. Florida’s Prisoner Releasee Reoffender necessary most guideline – PRR – modified that. PRR directs prosecutors to hunt the utmost sentence for somebody who commits a felony inside three years of leaving prison, which frequently means a lifetime behind bars.

However, in my son’s case, his second offense was dedicated earlier than PRR was enacted. The state prosecuting lawyer in St. Lucie County selected to cost him beneath PRR anyway, by retroacting the rules. The presiding choose went on document 3 times stating she didn’t agree with a life sentence and went as far to say she believed PRR to be unconstitutional. However, she additionally went on document to say she had no selection, her palms have been tied.

In 1995 at age 19, my son, William Jennings, was convicted of easy theft and for that he obtained an 18-month sentence. He accomplished that sentence in a Department of Corrections facility in South Florida. During that incarceration there was no drug therapy, no psychological well being counseling, and to make issues worse, we might be taught after the truth that medicine have been available on the within.

My son is not the identical troubled drug addicted younger man that he was in 1998, when he was arrested and convicted of latest costs of theft with a firearm and sentenced to natural life in prison.He is a good man with a good coronary heart. For the estimated $200 my son stole it has now price the state greater than $500,000, and if he lives to be in his 70s, it’ll price the state one other $700,000.

There are roughly 1,800 others like my son who’re serving natural life beneath PRR for non-fatal, no bodily contact crimes. The incarceration price per inmate per yr is roughly $28,042. That prices the state a staggering estimated $ 50,475,600 a yr, and an astronomical $1,009,512,000 in 20 years, in line with an investigative journalism report by Carey Aspinwall for The Marshall Project.

Is this how we would like state taxpayers’ cash spent? Locking up individuals for life, who by no means took a life, who induced no bodily hurt. My son’s crimes have been critical however not heinous, he isn’t a monster who deserves to die in prison, however he’ll if these legal guidelines aren’t modified.

We are 4 generations and 20 years into my son’s natural life sentence. Please assist me carry my son residence and everybody who’s serving a life with out parole sentence for non-fatal and no bodily contact crimes.

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Audrey Jennings Hudgins lives in Lamont, FL, and is founding father of Operation Overtime Florida Unjust Life Sentence Project. Operation Overtime holds month-to-month rallies on the Historic Capitol entrance steps from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., with subsequent scheduled for Jan. 11. Reach her at operationovertime@aol.com

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