Expanding the reach of the Second Look Act to include those serving life without parole sentences (LWOP)
The problem
In 2025, the Maryland legislature passed the Second Look Act (HB853), which allows incarcerated people who were convicted when they were at least 18 and less than 25, and who have served at least 20 years of their sentence, to petition the court for a sentence reduction. This was a great step forward. But the law did not offer this avenue to everyone. Those convicted of life without parole, of sex offenses, and of murder involving a victim who was a first responder killed in the line of duty are not eligible to apply.
Should restrictions on Second Look eligibility be repealed? Life without the possibility of parole is a sentence to death by incarceration. There are at least five compelling reasons why people serving LWOP should have access to a second look.
- Racial disparities
Prosecutors have wide discretion in deciding whether to seek LWOP, life with parole, or a lesser sentence. Racial disparities in sentencing are well documented. More than half of people serving LWOP sentences in the United States are Black. Maryland has one of the highest rates of racial disparity in sentencing in the country. Disparities persist even after controlling for criminal history and offense severity. - Jurisdictional disparities
There are also significant disparities depending on where a person is charged, tried, and convicted. According to a report from the Maryland Second Look Coalition, LWOP sentencing rates are higher in some of Maryland’s more conservative counties and those with a zealous state’s attorney.
Racial and jurisdictional disparities are strong reasons to include people serving LWOP in second-look opportunities. The Second Look Act does not guarantee an applicant a reduced sentence or release; it simply allows a court to consider whether a sentence should be reduced after decades of incarceration. Disparate sentencing erodes public trust. Similar cases should be treated similarly, regardless of race or locality—especially when the consequence of disparate treatment is dying in prison.
- People change
Morally, we should recognize that no person should be considered irredeemable. People can change, often radically, particularly between young adulthood and maturity. A person’s demonstrated rehabilitation, current dangerousness—or lack thereof—and readiness to return to the community should be relevant to deciding whether continued incarceration is necessary after decades in prison.A sentence that offers no possibility of review can extinguish hope and undermine incentives for rehabilitation.
- Guilt by association and felony murder
The moral argument is even stronger in cases involving Maryland’s felony-murder rule. When a violent crime is committed by a group—for example, during a robbery or burglary—and someone is killed, every member of the group may be charged with first-degree murder and potentially sentenced to life without parole. For example, a person could have served as a lookout, may never have held a weapon, and may have had no reason to anticipate that anyone would be killed, yet still receive an LWOP sentence.After decades of incarceration, there should be an opportunity to examine the individual circumstances of such cases, including the person’s actual role in the offense, subsequent conduct, rehabilitation, and current risk.
- The human and financial costs of lifelong incarceration
There are enormous financial and human costs to incarcerating someone for life. Maryland’s prison population is growing older and sicker. According to The Sentencing Project, 36 percent of people serving life sentences are 55 or older. Older incarcerated people require substantially more medical care and other resources.Keeping people incarcerated beyond the point necessary to protect public safety is both costly and difficult to justify when an individual has demonstrated rehabilitation and poses little or no current risk.
A solution
MAJR believes that no one should be sentenced to spend the rest of their natural life in prison without an avenue for review that allows them to demonstrate rehabilitation. Life without parole sentences finalized at conviction are morally repellent. In addition, keeping people in prison beyond what is necessary for public safety is pointless and expensive for taxpayers. According to the Sentencing Project, in 2024, 424 people were serving LWOP in Maryland out of about 2,500 serving life sentences in the state.
Granting people serving LWOP eligibility for a second look is an important step toward lifting the remaining restrictions on second-look review, and more broadly toward justice, proportionality, and common sense.
What other jurisdictions have done
The District of Columbia Council unanimously passed the Omnibus Public Safety and Justice Act of 2020 (also known as the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act—IRAA—3.0) in December 2020. The law allows those who committed a crime before the age of 25, and who have served at least 15 years in prison, to apply for a sentence review to the DC Superior Court.
Six states (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Utah) allow prosecutors to request a court to reconsider any sentence.
Few if any other jurisdictions grant second looks to those serving LWOP unless they were under 18 at the time of conviction. Maryland should become a leader in expanding the reach of second look laws.
The question is not whether every person serving LWOP should be released. It is whether anyone should be categorically denied the opportunity to demonstrate that, after decades of incarceration, they are rehabilitated and no longer present a threat to public safety.
Read More
DC Corrections Information Council, “DC Council Passes Second Look Amendment Act of 2019,” May 19, 2021.
Sarah Cohbra and Becky Feldman, “The Second Look Movement: An Assessment of the Nation’s Sentence Review Laws,” The Sentencing Project, August 27, 2025.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh, “One in Five: Racial Disparity in Imprisonment—Causes and Remedies,” The Sentencing Project,” December 7, 2023.
Ashley Nellis and Celeste Barry, “A Matter of Life: The Scope and Impact of Life and Longterm Imprisonment in the United States,” The Sentencing Project, January 8, 2025.
Maryland State Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy, An Assessment of Racial Differences in Maryland Guidelines-Eligible Sentencing Events, July 2023.
Prison Policy Initiative, Racial Justice.
