All murderers must serve a minimum of 2-3 years in prison.

Judges already set a tariff, which is the number of years the murderer will serve in prison before being considered for release.

In Alabama, for instance, 134 murderers are serving life terms without parole, 42 more than sit on death row.

Therefore, a multiple murderer - no matter how many actual homicides - will not serve more than 25 years in prison.

In addition, 18 other murderers had been serving life in prison that year, and all were subsequently freed.

The conditions under which murderers would serve their life sentences must be no more rigorous than those applied to other long-sentence prisoners.

But until last year Massachusetts permitted even murderers serving a life sentence without parole to take the unsupervised leaves.

Its centerpiece is a small painting by a convicted murderer now serving time in New York State.

McCullah, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence, had assaulted all of his previous cellmates.

In consequence, the average convicted murderer in the United States now serves less than six years, the average rapist just five.