Gov. Beverly Perdue said today that the scheduled release of 20 inmates serving life sentences was "unacceptable," and that she was considering defying the courts in blocking their release next week.
"I really don't know what the answer is going to be," Perdue said in a telephone news conference from China where she is on a trade mission.
"Everybody that I have talked to understands that letting them out is not going to be the answer that I am going to be able to live with," Perdue said. "In other words, if I go to jail, are you going to visit me? Somebody said they were going to bring me cookies."
The state is scheduled to release the prisoners Oct. 29 after the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the inmates had served their life sentences. The inmates were sentenced in the 1970s when life sentences were considered to be 80 years and when sentencing laws allowed inmates to cut time off with good behavior.
The governor said she has been conferring daily with her staff and with the attorney general's office to find ways to block the prisoners' release, including closely examining the inmates' records while in prison.
"I find it unacceptable that this might happen in North Carolina," Perdue said of the inmate release.
A decision not to release the inmates, could set up a confrontation with the courts, and could potentially put the governor at risk at being held in contempt of court. But it could it also could provide a potential political boost for Perdue, who has been sagging badly in the public opinion polls while she dealt with the worst economic downturn since the 1930s.
