John Lennon's killer denied parole after 35 years in prison. Should he be released

From just looking at the headline, yeah, my first reaction is he should get neither less nor more than a similar crime. But good points have been made about the reasons. Assuming that's true and sourced from something, it suggests that he is still a danger.

Eh, it comes down to risk factors. Both the risk that Chapman himself poses and the risk that is posed by other people seeing light sentences handed down. The latter doesn't apply in this case, 35 years is a pretty solid sentence. If Chapman's mental health is stabilised to the point that he is beyond reasonable doubt unlikely to ever reoffend, then he probably should be released (although god knows how he'd cope with the outside world now). It can never be beyond absolute doubt, because people don't work like that, so it's down to acceptable risk.

I don't know that we know enough about whatever spurred him to do it -I'm hesitant to try categorise it as narcisstic personality disorder or whatever since I'm literally just going by what's in this thread and internet threads aren't exactly primary sourcing material!- to be able to say he's "beyond reasonable doubt" in terms of potential recidivism, so I'm going to assume that the judge with access to his medical records and psychological records was probably correct in their decision.

While it says he has had good behaviour that doesn't mean he still is not crazy for example.
A parole board makes its decisions on reports and evaluations. Which none of us know.

I do not have access to the evidence which was considered in making the decision, but so far as I’m concerned such decisions should be made on the basis of whether or not the person poses a risk to the public if released—it’s not a matter of how much time he has or has not served which is irrelevant to that question. I do know that this person has been definitively diagnosed with a mental illness, and I also know that as recently as two years ago at a parole hearing he continued to express a weird kind of pride in the murder.

The rather extraordinary degree of premeditation is itself suggestive of what Chapman is capable of; it wasn’t, for example, a crime committed in the heat of passion under circumstances unlikely to be repeated.

Joe prim wrote: »

What a disgusting and heartless thing to say, surely Justin Bieber would be a much more popular choice?

Por qué no los dos?

If I killed someone in that fashion I would expect to be in prison for the rest of my days.
He was sentenced 20years to life. I hope he never gets out.