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Under California’s three strikes, a person convicted of a felony who has two or more prior convictions for certain offenses must be sentenced to at least 25 years to life in state prison, even if the third offense is nonviolent. Critics have argued it is the harshest sentencing law in the United States. Life sentences have been handed down for stealing a pair of pants, shoplifting, forging a check and breaking into a soup kitchen.

Daily News @ http://RevolutionNews.US - The Oklahoma State legislature has passed a bill that's now heading to the governor's desk to be signed which would mandate a sentence of up to life in prison for converting marijuana into hashish. OK already has a law that allows those convicted of cultivating or selling marijuana to be sentenced with up to life in prison. Reason's Matt Welch weighs in.

A convicted criminal who was serving out his sentence in a monastery has escaped for the second time. He’s asked authorities to return him to prison, saying life with the with Capuchin monks is too punishing.

Recording the police = A life sentence? Read more here:

A Nevada woman named Michelle Lyn Taylor "kissed a friend’s [13 year-old] child, forced him to touch her breast and asked him to have sex with her."

That's bad, but should the punishment be... life in prison? That was the sentence that she got.

WOW! WTF? This is unbelievable almost to the point of urban legends. A 35 year old man gets life in prison for pot. The first comment on the article is unbelievable also.

Yes, you read that right — the latest casualty of our War on Drugs is a grandmother who never even touched the drugs that sent her to prison. Though she may not look like public enemy No. 1, our persistently illogical criminal justice system has determined that this harsh punishment fits her crime. The truth, though, is that her fate was sealed, in large part because she didn't have a card to play when negotiating her sentence.

(Extra info: Houston Chronicle link: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Drug-crime-sends-first-t...)

The new documentary, "Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal," chronicles Abu-Jamal’s life and work as a journalist, writer and public intellectual, even as he spent some 30 years on death row in Pennsylvania. In 1982, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to die for allegedly killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He has always maintained his innocence. Then, last year, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals set aside Abu-Jamal’s death sentence after finding jurors were given confusing instructions that encouraged them to choose death rather than a life sentence.

The Supreme Court on Monday limited the use of life terms in prison for murderers under 18, ruling that judges must consider the defendant’s youth and the nature of the crime before putting him behind bars with no hope for parole. In a 5-4 decision, the high court struck down as cruel and unusual punishment the laws in about 28 states that mandated a life term for murderers, including those under age 18. The justices ruled in the cases of two 14-year-olds who were given life terms for their role in a homicide, but their decision goes further. It applies to all those under 18.