How Can a Prisoner Serve More than 1 Life Sentence at a Time?

On February 17, 1992, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr. sentenced serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to 15 consecutive life sentences.  

Dahmer’s punishment represented each life he had taken. During his trial, he pleaded guilty by reason of insanity to murdering and dismembering the bodies of 15 young men and teen boys during a gruesome homicidal spree between 1987 and 1991. The jury dismissed Dahmer’s defense.  

Gram also hit Dahmer with an additional 10 years after each life sentence, with no chance of parole until the “Milwaukee Monster” had completed more than 900 years. 

Four months later, Dahmer received a 16th life sentence in his native Ohio, where he pleaded guilty to the 1978 murder of his first victim, Steven Hicks. The punishment was to run consecutively with his 15 life sentences in Wisconsin. Dahmer’s time in prison was cut short in 1994 when a fellow inmate bludgeoned him to death.   

During the sentencing hearing in Milwaukee, Gram informed a packed courtroom that the point of the multiple life sentences wasn’t to pile on “more and more years.”  

“People are looking to me to provide a measure of protection to the community,” Gram said at the time. “And I don’t think there's only one way that that protection can be provided, and that is to see that this defendant never again has the opportunity to walk the streets of our community as a free man.”  

Gram’s rationale lines up with the general sentiment in the American law enforcement community—particularly in states that don’t carry out the death penalty—that multiple life terms are a punishment for mass murderers, serial rapists, terrorists and other perpetrators of horrific crimes involving more than one victim.  

The same year Dahmer died, an Oklahoma City judge sentenced Charles Scott Robinson, who was convicted on six counts of sex crimes against children, including forcible oral sodomy, lewd acts with a child under 16 and rape by instrumentation, to earning him 5,000 years for each count to run consecutively. That’s a total of 30,000 years in prison. Robinson, who is still alive and incarcerated, wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he’s at least 108 years old.   

Federal judges can be just as harsh when doling out multiple life sentences. Oklahoma City Bombing accomplice Terry Nichols is serving 161 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder, arson, terrorism and manslaughter. The 1995 terrorist attack on the federal building killed 168 people.  

Punishing violent criminals with more than one lifetime behind bars is driven by the justice system’s relentless practicality and a measure of symbolism. Judges tend to deliver a separate life sentence for every life lost or violated. The symbolism is meant to help victims or their surviving relatives heal. The practicality is in reducing a criminal’s chances of walking free again.  

In many states, a person sentenced to life can technically be eligible for parole after a certain number of years, so judges seek to shut the door on that slim hope, according to legal experts. Multiple life sentences are almost a legal guarantee that the punishment endures. 

Judges and prosecutors are also wary of sentences and verdicts being overturned on appeal. A defendant sentenced to multiple life terms may succeed in only having a portion of their conviction or sentences overturned, but they would remain in prison for any counts that remain on the books.  

In America, stacking life sentences has become a way of affirming the gravity of violent crimes—and ensuring that justice, at least on paper, is meted out.