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The inmates serving life sentences who were scheduled to be released Thursday remain behind bars, amidst unresolved legal questions about credit for good behavior.
"We're working with lawyers to try to be sure that we've done everything that we can do to prove that the method that was used to compute these suggested releases was wrong," said Gov. Bev Perdue.
Twenty-six men and one woman had been named eligible to be released, because 1974 law that appeared to define a life sentence as 80 years.
The list includes convicted murderers, rapists, and robbers-some of whom were originally sent to death row.
"The question becomes, do you want those folks to live next to you in an unsupervised capacity," said Perdue. "I don't, and I don't believe anyone in North Carolina does."
But some groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina argue that blockage of the inmates' releases is outside Perdue's authority.
"We don't object to the Governor or the Attorney General double-checking the math. But they cannot retroactively change the rules of the game. That would violate Due Process," said Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of ACLU-NC. "The Governor and the Attorney General took an oath to uphold the laws of the state as those laws were written at the time they were applied, not as they wished the laws had been written."
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By L.C. Wallace on 10/30 12:38 PM
Why do folks always claim that liberals are eager to diminish societal conditions? How many laws are subject to change at the whim of folks who do not like them? The Attorney General nor the Governor can make or overturn laws, that requires the act of congress or the supreme court. When will conservatives be happy, when slavery is re-instituted; the voters right laws are overturned for women and minorities; women are put back in the bedroom and the kitchen? It should also be noted that everybody who is convicted is not always guilty. Let us not make blanket statements that tend to sensationalize events without substantiated proof that our fears are governed by facts. Take a mental health break before you encourage the governor and attorney general to react to pressure in a fashion that does not protect all the citizens' rights. Together we can find an appropriate solution; someone who has been incarcerated for twenty years might be more amenable to behaving within the "norm". Did you ever think that just because we don't forgive people that God does?
By w. erwin on 10/30 12:21 PM
i think its a sad day in north Carolina you can't just change the law to suit you i made a mistake when i voted for her she puts state workers out of a job for schools to be built for Hispanic who are here not USA or STATE citizens let them go they served there time work on getting more jobs for NC citizens
By E. G. Cayton on 10/29 08:58 PM
Unfortunately the liberals persist in gaining even more ground in diminishing the protections of the majority to force greater protections for those who committ violent and repulsive crimes. These circumstances may bring notariety to the lawyers who want freedom for murderers and rapists, but their freedom will not service any measure of justice. They have been found guilty of horrid crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment. That should be the end of it. To whom or what would benefit from their releases. The State's Attorney General should be researching similar cracks in the legal system and fix them before such a ridiculous arguement services again where from murders, rapists and child molesters will be freed to walk our streets again as predators.
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