Opinion ID: 2525107
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 25

Heading: Inadequacy of imprisonment

Text: The prosecutor argued prison was insufficient punishment for defendant. The defendant, by [your] sending him to prison, isn't going to sit in prison for the rest of [his] life and think about how bad he feels and how sorry he is for what he's done. It will just be life for him, life as usual. . . . [¶] . . . [F]or this defendant, I don't think that prison is such a terrible thing. [¶] The reason I say that is that prison is really an intolerable place for people that abide by the law. But for people that don't, for people that live by no laws at all, prison can be a very tolerable place. Defendant contends the evidence did not support this argument. We have approved similar comments that life imprisonment is an insufficient penalty given an individualized assessment of the defendant. ( People v. Smithey (1999) 20 Cal.4th 936, 997-999, 86 Cal.Rptr.2d 243, 978 P.2d 1171; People v. Lucas (1995) 12 Cal.4th 415, 496, 48 Cal.Rptr.2d 525, 907 P.2d 373[defendant's brutality was such that he would not even see the bars'].) This argument was proper.