Inmate claims his life sentence ended when he died and was revived

Benjamin Schreiber is very much alive. But that hasn’t stopped him from arguing that he died four years ago.

After the convicted murderer collapsed in his prison cell in 2015, doctors restarted his heart five times. Recovering back at the Iowa State Penitentiary, Schreiber filed a novel legal appeal. Because he died before he was resuscitated, he had technically fulfilled his life sentence, he claimed.

Judges, however, aren’t buying it. Dying for a brief amount of time doesn’t amount to a get-out-of-jailfree card, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday, saying that the 66-year-old will remain in prison.

“Schreiber is either alive, in which case he must remain in prison, or he is dead, in which case this appeal is moot,” Judge Amanda Potterfield wrote.

Schreiber has been behind bars since 1996, when he was charged in the death of John Dale Terry, 39, whose bludgeoned body was found near an abandoned trailer in rural Agency, Iowa. A jury found him guilty of murder, and in 1997 he was sentenced to life without parole.

Nearly two decades later, Schreiber was hit with severe septic poisoning. According to court records, he had developed kidney stones that were so large they “caused him to urinate internally.” On March 30, 2015, he was rushed to the hospital, where doctors brought him back to life by administering adrenaline and epinephrine.

In April 2018, Schreiber filed for post-conviction relief, claiming that he was being held in prison illegally. His sentence was supposed to end with his death, he argued, which had taken place three years prior, when his heart stopped.