Iowa Inmate Appeals Life Sentence, Says He Already Died

TheCatalyst31 [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

You can’t say this guy isn’t creative.

Benjamin Schreiber, 66, is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the Iowa State Penitentiary for bludgeoning a man to death back in 1996.  Well, in 2015, he became incredibly ill due to kidney stones, which eventually led to septic poisoning. He ended up being rushed to a hospital, where doctors revived him five times.

In April 2018, Schreiber filed a claim that basically stated since he was momentarily dead, his life sentence had been completed. Schreiber’s lawyer even argued that his sentence was life without parole, “not to life plus one day.”

The district court said his argument was “unpersuasive and without merit.” And on Wednesday, the appeals court agreed. They said, “Schreiber is either alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is dead, in which case this appeal is moot.” They noted that his signature had also appeared on legal documents since the time of his “death,” which made the probability of him being dead “unlikely.” Finally, the court stated that Schreiber’s sentence will not end until a medical examiner declares him dead.

Full story at Yahoo