Is 100 years a life sentence? According to this, there is apparently some debate.
More specifically: a minor cannot be sentenced to life without parole, because of the supreme court case Graham v. Florida, which held that such a punishment would be cruel and unusual, violating the 8th Amendment. But can they be sentenced to, say 10,000 years in prison without the possibility of parole? Maybe, it turns out.
Because some of the people on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (and the Supreme Court) among others, are fatuous, self-important idiots. "But where oh where can we draw the line?" they ask rhetorically while ringing their hands in their wood paneled chambers. John Rodgers, one of the aforementioned idiots, is quoted as saying that applying the ruling to sentences that are not explicitly "life without parole" would "lead to a lot of questions."
What is the function of our judicial system if absurdly educated and powerful people cannot see that sentencing someone who is 16 to 89 fucking years is the same thing as "life"? Chaz Bunch, who received that sentence, will be 16+89=105 when his sentence is up. Which means, with a high level of statistical confidence, that HE WILL BE DEAD. Can a state that bars the death penalty sentence people to be thrown from a plane into the North Atlantic, because that isn't explicitly a death sentence? If I call my beer a barley soda, can I drink it while I drive to work?
This is ridiculous, pompous, semantic bullshit, and the judges engaging in it should be ashamed of themselves.
So this is to you, you clucking chickens wearing black robes: This isn't an essay question in your graduate law class. You are forcing a 28 year old person to die in a cinder block cage, some time in the next 75 years, against the clear-as-day intent of law that prohibits that from happening. You are pretending that your little thought exercise is more important than upholding the law, and certainly more important than protecting the people it was written to protect. You are spineless, brainless douchebags who are willing to throw away another person's life over a question so simple an 8 year old child could answer it: is 100 years a fucking life sentence?
