news-record.com

I get the angst and anger over this.

It stinks to see droves of violent criminals, who were sentenced to "life" in prison, let out after 30 years or so -- at ages ranging from 48 to 68.

These people are rapists (of little girls, in some cases) and murderers. Even multiple murderers.

But it's important to understand how it happened.

“I’m appalled that the state of North Carolina is being forced to release prisoners who have committed the most heinous of crimes, without any review of their cases,” Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement that refers to a recent decision of the N.C. Supreme Court.

But it isn't the court that's forced this to happen.

It was lenient state laws written in 1974 and 1981, an era when the state wasn't as serious about dealing strongly with violent crime.

Our courts are supposed to rule on the basis of law, and that's what they did in this case.

What the Supreme Court did last week was simply to affirm, without comment, a unanimous ruling of the N.C. Court of Appeals issued Nov. 4, 2008.

Ironically, the author of the COA opinion, Doug McCullough, lost his bid for re-election that same day. If you hated the decision, you could find satisfaction in that. But McCullough was a former federal prosecutor, and he was joined by two other conservative judges.

This wasn't a bleeding-heart liberal activist decision. On the contrary, it was upholding a plainly written law that was in force at the time these killers and rapists were convicted of their crimes. That law, enacted in 1974, said: "A sentence of life imprisonment shall be considered as a sentence of imprisonment for a term of 80 years in the state's prisons."

OK, you say, they should serve 80 years then. Let them out when they're 100 or older.

Trouble is, in 1981 the legislature struck again. This time it passed the Fair Sentencing Act, which contained a retroactive provision having the effect of cutting sentences in half. For all practical purposes, these criminals began serving "life" sentences of only 40 years.

The Fair Sentencing Act also allowed prisoners the opportunity to reduce their sentences further by gaining credit for good conduct, working, earning a high school or college diploma and maybe writing a letter to their mothers once a week. Under those rules, sentences could be whittled down to the point that these vicious killers and rapists are about to be released.

These laws were changed after violent crime rates skyrocketed and legislators figured out that revolving-door prisons weren't making the state a safer place. Now a life sentence means the offender will spend the rest of his life behind bars -- no parole, no 40 years or even 80 years, no good-conduct time.

But offenders sentenced under laws in force back then can't be punished under laws enacted later.

North Carolina forced this on itself. Lenient attitudes about crime in an earlier era have brought about troubling consequences today.