Well, the thing is it’s irrelevant that he would be paroled at his 15 year mark. Parole boards look at how long you have served, he wasn’t going to be paroled at the 7 year mark–he decided to leave prison via escape at that point. He still owes at minimum 8 more years.
Why does it matter that he created a new life for himself? If we, as a society, are going to allow people who steal for all time the one life that their victim had to live, a life of their own to live outside of prison it is going to be on our terms, meaning when our criminal justice system says they get to start their lives again–not when they feel like breaking out of prison.
I definitely think rehabilitation is important, but don’t throw the entire concept of justice out the window. For society to function I do think people need to be fairly punished for doing bad things, it’s not a matter of “deterrence”, it’s a matter of the state providing equitable justice for its people.
His criminal behavior is not all in the past. Breaking out of prison was the start of a continuous criminal act that won’t end until he’s back in prison to finish his sentence.
I had understood your question but I thought you wanted the general principle.
In case of a prison escape after a conviction:
You can get the rest of the time you served prescribed. The prescription countdown starts the day of the escape.
It’s usually twenty years for criminal matters, 5 years for lesser offences (hard to transcribe directly into US law terms but for your question that’s good enough).
The time you’ve already served gets substracted from the prescription “tariffs” above. IIRC.
I’m extremely liberal and I think there are very few people in this world who are beyond redemption. But if you take a life you need to face that. You say he’s lived with 41 years of regret but I didn’t see a single thing in the article about regret. For all I know he’s had 41 years of gleeful internal gloating about getting away with murder.
Prison should mainly be about rehabilitation, and on that matter I would think he is rehabilitated simply because he doesn’t seem to be terribly murderous anymore. But there must be some level of punishment as well, otherwise I think the message you send is that if you’re good at hiding you get to commit one free murder in your life.
I understand what you are saying. It’s problematic to deal with. There has been a romantic notion that people commit crimes in bad situations, run away and build new lives, and that should be considered if they are eventually apprehended. I’m sure that happens sometimes. But it still won’t satisfy many people that justice has been served if the person is not punished. And just because a person has not been convicted of any more crimes, doesn’t mean they are rehabilitated or have atoned at all.
But it is a modern world problem. Catching a person who fled and lived a simple life with a new identity would have been very difficult to do until recently. In the past there must have been many people who did turn over a new leaf after recognizing their good fortune in escaping punishment. Now they will tend to be driven by the fear of discovery.
There may also be more people now who do not believe in redemption. We are increasingly adopting an eye-for-an-eye attitude toward justice, even as we increasingly see that matters of justice are hazy, discovering the truth is never certain, and justice is not as blind as we would like it to be for ourselves.
Its not a “yes or no question”. It is a question of “whether its in the public interest” or not. That will depend on the circumstances of each case. I suspect that it is in the public interest in Mr Wright’s case, while certainly not in this case.
I don’t completely disagree, but I hate the phrase “paying your debt to society” when it means time in prison (as opposed to something like community service that does actually benefit society). It especially doesn’t make sense to use the phrase regarding someone who has been living as a contributing member of society, but will then become a drain on society if imprisoned.
It really depends on the crime, and who was affected by it. In some cases, the effect of the crime will be minor, and will wear off in time. In other cases, the crime disrupts people’s lives to a great extent, and there should be no statute of limitations in effect.
I daresay the family of the man he killed could give a rat’s ass about how “good” of a life this man has led. The point of dragging him back to America and putting him back in prison is to show that you don’t get to break out of prison and get away with it just because you happen to be bright enough to do it.
He may very well die in the next 10 years. So what?
His victim’s still dead. This guy shoulda served his sentence. He chose to escape. He has a nice life and family now? Too fucking bad.