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From Mecklenburg County Sheriff Chipp Bailey:
When I first heard the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled a Cumberland County man sentenced to life should be released because the legislature considered a life sentence to be 80 years, I shook my head in sad disbelief. In my 30-plus years serving the Mecklenburg County citizens I have seen many unbelievable decisions and occurrences. I have witnessed many of the same individuals being arrested over and over again, smug in the notion they know how to play the system. Rapist and murderers, especially those who commit their crimes as extensions to other acts of violence such as armed robbery and kidnapping, should serve a life sentence that ends when their lives do, not in half the time because they displayed "good behavior."
The death of Eve Carson in Chapel Hill and the subsequent revelations revealing a broken probation system saddened me, but didn't shock me. This was an inexplicably heinous crime committed by predators on probation for other crimes. The only positive coming out of these tragic situations was a promise from the governor to fix the probation and parole system in North Carolina. As far as I know, repairs have begun, but it is still a work in progress.
Last week in the Observer, I saw the bold headline "Paroled killer pleads guilty to kidnapping." Based on news of the forthcoming releases from our prisons, N.C. citizens should prepare for this oft-repeated headline if the Court of Appeals ruling is allowed to stand.
I applaud Gov. Bev Perdue and Attorney General Roy Cooper on their stand to not let these serious offenders out of prison because someone somewhere set an arbitrary time to be life and someone else reduced that sentence for "good behavior." I implore the N.C. Supreme Court not to dodge this issue, but to accept this appellate review and to apply a standard of common sense to the ruling. If an arbitrary age has to be set for a standard to be "life," take Methuselah, who lived 969 years, divide his age in half and set that as the standard for life in prison. I could live with that calculation.
On Halloween night my deputies, along with other local and federal law enforcement officers, will initiate our annual Operation Trick or Treat, where they attempt contact with all 742 sex offenders registered in our county. We do this to make sure they are at home and their porch lights are turned off, so as not to attract youngsters to their house. This is the degree we have to monitor sex offenders to ensure they won't reoffend, because, I assure you, they will if left unchecked. Release of the prisoners I have read about will, in many cases, increase the numbers of these registered sex offenders in Mecklenburg and other counties. We should recognize this outrageous possibility as the threat to public safety it is. We must demand our state courts, legislators and executives protect us from such a threat.
