Hitman gets no punishment for murder at all

AP reports:

A former Mafia hitman already serving a life sentence was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison for the 2018 fatal prison beating of notorious Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.

Prosecutors said Fotios “Freddy” Geas used a belt lock to repeatedly strike the 89-year-old Bulger in the head hours after he arrived at the troubled U.S. prison in Hazelton from another Florida prison in October 2018. Defense attorneys disputed that characterization on Friday, saying Geas struck Bulger with his fist.

The Justice Department said last year that it would not seek the death penalty against Geas for Bulger’s murder.

Congress abolished parole in the federal system many years ago, so life in federal prison is life without parole. Gaes’ new sentence is nominally consecutive to his life sentence, meaning it begins on the day he dies. Therefore, he is sentenced to no sentence at all. The government even entered into a plea agreement from clearly premeditated murder to manslaughter.

Premeditated murder by someone already convicted of murder should be a mandatory death penalty. That would avoid the criminal trial and the enormous expense and delay that comes with it. The Supreme Court has wrongly ruled such laws unconstitutional.