RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - North Carolina's Supreme Court has temporarily halted the release of two convicted murderers.
The court granted a request from the attorney general's office Friday afternoon, shortly before Alford Jones and Faye Brown were set to go free.
The ruling provides state attorneys with another chance to bring their arguments after two lower courts sided with the inmates this week. Gov. Beverly Perdue has said that she's disgusted with the state's legal system for saying the inmates should go free.
State courts previously determined that so-called life sentences during a period in the 1970s were defined as 80 years long. Two dozen inmates could be freed immediately because of sentence-reduction credits applied to their terms.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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