The US Supreme Court has ruled that death sentences may only be imposed by juries, not judges. I don’t know if SCOTUS has similarly ruled regarding lesser offenses and penalties, but in at least this instance sentencing is out of the hands of the judge.
My request wasn’t serious, but it’s still neat to learn that there are in fact people that get by without noses. Thanks.
If you rob somebody and subsequently get arrested with a dimebag of pot in your pocket, you’ve committed two crimes, a felony and a misdemeanor. If you get five years on one and six months on the other, you’ll most likely serve them consecutively, but it’s possible for the judge or jury (depending on who is assessing punishment) to “stack” and charges and make you serve them consecutively, meaning one after the other. It may sound foolish to be serving time on two separate crimes concurrently, but it makes sense, because the result is that you then have two criminal convictions that can be used against you if you reoffend.
The same goes for your question about serving four life sentences. If you commit four crimes and get four life sentences on each…well, there you are. It’s more common for sentences to be served concurrently, but it’s possible for the sentences to be stacked, as with serial killer Juan Corona, who was sentenced to 25 life sentences to be served consecutively.
If you’re asking why doesn’t “life” mean that the person will definitely die in prison, it’s because it’s a term of art, meaning that a person was sentenced to a period of time over a certain number of years or that he won’t be eligible for parole until a certain number of years has been served, or both. In Texas, a life sentence for the purposes of determining parole eligibility is a sentence of sixty years or more. Texas is one of only four states that has no option to assess a life sentence without parole. If you are assessed 99 years capital murder, you will still be eligible for parole in half of a minimum life sentence, or 30 years, if you live that long.
So “life” doesn’t necessarily mean “for the remainder of your days on this planet,” although that is often the effect. If that seems like a joke to you, don’t blame the courts, write your congressman.
Of course, the real insult to injury after being sentenced to four life sentences is your incompetent lawyer trying to console you by saying “Don’t worry, you’ll only serve half that.”
Hey, if you got four but deserved eight, thank the guy. 
In the UK a ‘life’ sentence does not mean for the rest of the lifespan.
When a convicted person is sentenced to life, the presiding judge will determine the minimum tariff, which is comprised of punishment, public protection and deterrant, but this is rolled into one so Joe Public never really understands what sentencing mechanism actually is.
The minimum tariff is the term that must be served before there can be any consideration for parole, and its not that often that life sentence prisoner is succesful at the first parole hearing, and there is a set period between parole applications.
It means that the judge can set a minimum tariff of say fifteen years, but is the prisoner does not meet the parole reqirement through bad behaviour, or not making efforts to address their offending behaviour such as cooperating with various agencies, that prisoner can serve very much longer and can effectivelt end up meaning the entire remaining lifespan - though that is not the primary purpose.
Having four life sentences will usually mean the tariff being set that much higher, someone with four murders will be most unlikely to get out within 20 years, and much more probably be in excess of 30 years.
‘Life’ and ‘whole life’ are differant
‘Life’ means a lifetime licence, the offender may be realeased in as little as perhaps five years, but for the rest of their life they must meet the conditions of their release licence, the conditions set upon that licence will be set by the parole board, breaches of any of the terms of that licence will result in a return to prison, without any intervention from the courts, and no further offence need have taken place.
Once returned to prison following a licence breach, the offender must reapply for parole, and this could take a few years to regain.
We are now employing a system that uses the ‘life’ term much more readily, its for multiple seperate incidents of violence usually, or for sexual offenders, and it basically keeps the parole officers with a huge sanction to exercise against the offender, in that the latter can be returned to jail for fairly minor things, and as time passes the licence conditions may be eased.
In the UK there are only perhaps a few dozen prisoners whose sentence is ‘whole life’ which means exactly what is implies.
It seems to me that those people who contend that the legal system in our country is a joke are those who are unaware of many of the protections that it provides its citizens, and who take those protections for granted. There are many reasons that it is called a justice system, not the least of which is the fundamental attempt built in to provide…justice. It is intended to be fair. It is a system that serves the greater needs of society, sometimes making individuals unhappy. And that’s the price we pay for such a system. It’s not perfect. So?