Life!

It's official - Esteban Carpio has been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2005 murder of Detective James Allen. On one level, I have to hand it to Esteban: he fought tooth and nail to get off the hook: mounting an insanity defense, claiming (perhaps somewhat credibly) that he was deliberately beaten to a pulp by The Man, and letting public advocacy groups paint him as the real victim.

After his conviction in June, Carpio was finally sentenced on Tuesday to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, one for the murder of James Allen, and the second for "discharging a firearm while comitting a violent crime". As a cherry on the proverbial sundae, Carpio earned another 20 years for stabbing an 84 year old woman in the back - the crime that brought him before Detective Allen in the first place.

Esteban Carpio is not lucky in very many senses of the word, but he certainly is lucky that he comitted his crimes in Rhode Island, a state without a death penalty. Had Esteban Carpio been convicted in Delaware, Florida, or Texas, he'd be dead before his 40th birthday.