So now I'm back

Sorry for the silence, but I spent most of this week at a conference in New York, where I drank too much and slept too little.

Now that I'm back here and trying not to neglect this here blog, I wanted to point you to some excellent analysis of Georgia Senate Bill 13, which is intended to make life in prison without parole (LWOP) available to DA's even where the defendant is not charged with capital murder. Presently in GA, unless the defendant is charged with capital murder the only option for a sentence is life in prison, which means a convicted person would be eligible for parole after 30 years. For crimes in which the DA wishes to seek a harsher sentence, such as drug dealer on drug dealer murders, the DA has to seek the death penalty to make LWOP available to the jury.

Overall, the hope is that this bill would reduce instances of district attorneys deliberately over-charging cases, and would also reduce indigent defense costs by allowing defendants to plea to LWOP to avoid a death sentence. These seem like sensible goals, and I trust the analysis of a criminal defense attorney more than my own. Having said all that, if it's sensible and it involves the death penalty, it probably won't ever become law. This IS Georgia, after all.