Court Opinion

ID: 9569422
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:13:42.212976+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:57:32.028948
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice TOAL.
Although I concur with the majority opinion, I write separately to address the dissent’s interpretation of State v. Atkins, 303 S.C. 214, 399 S.E.2d 760 (1990). The dissent is correct to observe that we recognized in Atkins the logical impossibility of aggregating multiple life sentences. However, the dissent errs in failing to extend that logic to the present case. It is just as much a logical impossibility to aggregate multiple life sentences as it is to aggregate a life sentence with any other sentence. Moreover, the lesson from Atkins as applied to the present case is that there is no sentence greater than life. Whether aggregated to a five year sentence or a second life sentence, the ultimate time served remains the same. Accordingly, I believe Atkins controls the inquiry in *471the present case, and stands for the proposition that a life sentence may not be aggregated with another sentence so as to affect parole eligibility where statute does not so provide.