Let judges reconsider long prison sentences

For people, myself included, who are serving long prison sentences in New York, years pass, circumstances change, and lives take on dimensions that were not discernable at the time of sentencing.

- Devin A. Giordano, Tribune News service

Yet under current law, no judge has the power to revisit a sentence once it has been imposed, no matter how much time has passed or circumstances have changed.

This is not due to a lack of information. New York's prison system collects decades’ worth of records on behavior, age, health and risk. The problem is more basic than that. Judges are legally barred from reconsidering long sentences, even when the facts on which those sentences are based no longer exist.

Among those calling for a different approach is Rowan Wilson, the chief judge of the state of New York. In recent comments, Wilson has noted that judgments made at sentencing are not just responses to past harm but predictions about future danger. Judges, he argues, should be able to revisit those predictions later, based on new information.