Q&A on the News

Q: Please explain and give the background of the “Seven Deadly Sins” law referenced in the Feb. 25 AJC story, “The Ballad of Caroline and Page,” which caused Page Dukes, a first offender, to have a mandatory 10-year sentence, with judges unable to modify or change it. The judge in the case, Superior Court Judge Wendy Shoob, “was in favor of leniency, but her hands were tied,” according to the article. —Ellen Weldon Dukes, Austell

A: The “Seven Deadly Sins” law, in effect in Georgia since 1995, mandates minimum sentencing requirements for convictions in cases of murder, rape, armed robbery with a firearm, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and voluntary manslaughter.

According to the Georgia Department of Corrections, any offender convicted of one of these seven crimes “will serve a minimum of 10 years in prison ... If the offender was sentenced to longer than the 10-year minimum, they would not be eligible for parole at any time during that sentence.”

Also known as the “twostrikes” law, a second conviction for one of the seven deadly sins results in a sentence of life without parole.

Georgia’s mandatory minimum sentencing requirements were passed at a time when the crime rate in the country had recently reached a peak in 1991.

In the article you mentioned, Page Dukes, then a 20-year-old college freshman, was convicted of armed robbery with a gun and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2007. She was released in 2017.

CURTIS COMPTON /CCOMPTON@AJC.COM Singer-songwriter Caroline Aiken and daughter Page Dukes spend some time together earlier this year during a group guitar strum at the Hip where Aiken teaches guitar lessons in Athens. Dukes was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2007. She was released...