A Texas appeals court judge has questioned the fairness of the state’s life-without-parole sentences.
As The Austin American-Statesman reports,Judge Larry Meyers charged that no-parole sentences lack legal protections. The longtime Texas judge equated life-without-parole sentences to a slow-motion death penalty.
Judge Meyers was once a Republican, but is now a Democrat. He is the longest-serving member of the state’s highest criminal court.
Meyers said that the prospect of decades of prison—ended only by death from old age, medical problems or even violence—is as harsh as execution. Meyers argued that there are currently two variations of the death penalty in use in Texas; one is just longer than the other. He concluded, “People are getting a (life without parole) death sentence without the same [legal] safeguards and procedures that you get when there is a death sentence.”