HALF HIS NATURAL LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11520, 3 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

HALF HIS NATURAL LIFE.

A UNIQUE SENTENCE IMPJOSED IN CALIFORNIA. New York, September 10.— sentencing a criminal to imprisonment for "half his natural life" a San Francisco judge gave a decision believed to be unparalleled in court records. By the laws of the State of California an " habitual criminal" must be imprisoned for life for any felony committed after he is adjudged to be such. One Burns, a footpad, a robber, and an "habitual criminal," was arrested while attempting to commit a robbery. The law stipulates that an attempt to commit a crime shall be punished by imprisonment not exceeding half the maximum term for the offence itself. Here was a unique situation. The prisoner being an habitual criminal, had incurred by wis offence life imprisonment. But as he had been convicted of an attempt at crime only ho could not be sentenced to more than one-half of the fife penalty for the (Time performed. The judge said :—" The difficulty which confronts this Court is to fix the term of imprisonment. The defendant is admittedly twenty-five years of age, and is admittedly sound and well physically. The American experience mortality, upon the calculations of which life insurance corporations conduct their business, says that a man twenty-five years of age, physically sound, has even chances of living thirtyeight years, or of reaching his sixty-third year. This defendant, under these calculations, which are accepted as the best, has thirty-eight years of life before him. It is hence the judgment of this Court that he shall be confined in the State prison at Folsom for the period of nineteen years."