RALEIGH -- North Carolina's highest court is hoping to resolve a rancorous dispute over the fate of violent inmates sentenced to life three decades ago, with justices Tuesday setting a hurried schedule for arguments while keeping the prisoners behind bars.
The decision to hear the matter comes after lower-court judges issued conflicting rulings and Gov. Bev Perdue declared herself "disgusted" with the legal system. Justices will now determine whether convicted killers Alford Jones and Faye Brown have qualified for sentence-reduction credits that could wipe away the remainder of their time in prison.
Dozens more inmates -many of them murderers and rapists - were sentenced under the same 1970s law and could be affected by a high court decision. State officials have determined that about two dozen would immediately qualify for release if credits were applied to reduce their sentences.
Supreme Court clerk Christie Cameron said Tuesday that justices have expedited the schedule for written filings and that oral arguments could be held in February.
Sarah Jessica Farber, an attorney for Jones and Brown who has argued that they are being unlawfully detained, said she and the inmates were pleased the court accelerated the case schedule.
"They both trust that the process will work itself out," she said. "We're all taking this just one day at a time."
State attorneys have struggled to find favor among judges in the debate over the inmates. Supreme Court justices first sided with an inmate in October when he argued that a law between 1974 and 1978 defined life sentences as 80years long.
The inmates now contend that a variety of credits they have earned over the years should now be applied to the 80-year term to qualify them for unconditional release, and they won a judge's order for release last week before the appeals court agreed. The state Attorney General's Office contends the credits awarded to the inmates are not to be used to reduce the length of their terms but are to help determine other issues such as whether the prisoners are eligible for parole, and a third judge agreed.
Brown was sentenced for her role in the shooting death of a state trooper during a bank robbery in 1975. Jones was convicted in the January 1975 shooting of William B. Turner Sr.
