Prison advocates, attorneys and state officials are gearing up to help the estimated 200 prisoners now eligible for parole since a landmark decision last week by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court raised the minimum age to 21 before people could be sentenced to life without parole.
The Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state’s public defender agency, says it is working with the Parole Board to identify prisoners who are newly eligible to be considered for release as the agency prepares at least 40 attorneys to represent them.
So a 20 year old mass murderer will get a shot at parole? Isn’t one if the arguments against the death penalty that we can always sentence them to life without parole, and now that is going away?
Do you think parole boards of the future are going to be incompetent?
I do not believe they can predict the future.
In any case, I believe some crimes are so heinous, life without parole should be the sentence. I don’t care how old you are. If you have mens rea, that should be the sentence.
And if society agrees with you at that time, the parole board will make that decision. Taking away their power to decide seems like us trying to predict the future.
There is no need to predict the future. It’s the punishment they should get for a heinous premeditated murder.