New York Daily News reports that Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by a three-member parole board panel during the week of August 9, but this will actually be his sixth bid for parole. Robert Gangi, head of the prisoners' rights group Correctional Association of America, told New York Daily News that he doubts John Lennon's killer will ever be released from Attica prison in upstate New York because of the public outrage it would cause.
In 1981, a New York judge sentenced Mark Chapman to 20 years to life in prison after he pleaded guilty to second degree murder. While the man has been denied parole five times, he may want to get a New York criminal defense attorney for representation, so that he is not denied another opportunity for release from prison.
Yet there's at least one person who is strongly opposed to Mark Chapman getting parole and that's John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono. She has sent a letter to the parole board stating an opposition to the release of her husband's killer.
New York Daily News states that Yoko Ono wrote in a letter, "I am afraid it will bring back the nightmare, the chaos and confusion once again. Myself and John's two sons would not feel safe for the rest of our lives."
Related Resources:
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Parole (FindLaw's LawBrain)
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Murder: Second degree (FindLaw)
