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More clarity on Perdue's action

I think I have a clearer picture of Gov. Perdue's statement that she will block release of 20 violent offenders who might have been let out of prison next week despite their "life" sentences issued in the 1970s.

She's not defying the courts' determination that a life sentence actually amounts to 40 years under 1970s laws.

Instead, she's arguing against further shortening of those sentences based on "reduction credits" under a 1983 policy implemented by the N.C. Department of Correction.

That policy was wrongly applied in two ways, the governor says:

It was not supposed to cover prisoners sentenced before 1983, yet they also were given credits.

And it was not supposed to apply to the most serious offenders, such as murderers and rapists -- like the 20 in question.

Perdue says she won't release these offenders "until these new legal issues have been resolved by the courts."

I asked yesterday what would make the courts even consider the cases of these 20 individuals. Here's the answer.

One case, that of Bobby E. Bowden, already has been remanded by the N.C. Court of Appeals to the trial court in Cumberland County "for a hearing to determine how many sentence reduction credits defendant is eligible to receive and how those credits are to be applied."

That determination, the governor believes, can be used to recalculate the sentence reduction credits for all 20.

Obviously, the governor hopes the trial court will agree with her that Bowden never should have been awarded any sentence reduction credits.

Of course, any party that doesn't get the answer it likes from the trial court can appeal to the Court of Appeals. This could be tied up for several years in the courts, and all the while the offenders will remain in prison under the governor's order.

But only until they complete their 40 years. So, probably beginning five years from now, some of them will be getting out anyway.

In fact, what hasn't been reported yet to my knowledge, is this: Some serious offenders already have gotten out, thanks to sentence reduction credits under the 1983 policy. They weren't released outright but were granted parole. And they became elgible for parole sooner than they would have without these credits.

Who are these offenders? How many have there been? I don't know. It will take an inquiry to the Department of Correction to find out.

There are some other points to make here.

One is that the state never raised this argument about improperly granted sentence reduction credits when  the Bowden case was chugging through the courts. Did  the AG's office even consider it, or was it seen as a slender straw and dismissed?

A second is that Perdue, indirectly, is casting blame for the present circumstances at her political mentor, Jim Hunt. It was his administration in 1983 that came up with these sentence-reduction policies that today put killers and rapists on the doorstep of freedom. Of course, Perdue hasn't mentioned Hunt. And Hunt probably would not have personally signed off on this sort of policy. But he was in charge then.

A third is that Perdue is still on her trade mission to Asia. As such, according to the state constitution, the lieutenant governor is acting governor. We haven't heard from Walter Dalton during this episode, but Perdue technically can't order anything done about the prisoners until she plants her feet back on Old North State soil. In fact, she has not issued an executive order but has said she will block the release. She'll be back Tuesday and can officially execute an order then.

This all has been a fascinating legal and political drama, and it has a few acts to play out yet. All in all, Perdue has shown stong leadership, and her legal advisors, including  Attorney General Roy Cooper and his staff, clearly have worked hard to find any hook upon which to hang a satisfactory outcome.

The best result is to serve public safety by keeping dangerous criminals behind bars -- by lawful means.

I'm sure there are many more inmates in state prisons who will commit more crimes when they're released. That fact does not give the governor license to order them held for longer than the sentences imposed by the courts.

As things stand at present -- with the court rulings issued and the sentence reduction credits calculated by the Department of Correction -- these 20 criminals are legally due to be released very soon, like it or not. The governor says she will not release them, and she has raised a legal question that she believes justifies their continued incarceration.

Whether she is right or wrong ... that is for the courts to say.