Is John Lennon's killer eligible for parole?

Question: Is John Lennon's killer eligible for parole?

Answer: The killer of John Lennon has been eligible for parole three times as of 2005, and denied each time. Although he will be eligible for parole in October 2006, but the general consensus is that he will never be granted parole due to public outrage. Being in jail is, frankly, the only thing keeping him alive.

His own statement at his last parole hearing goes, in part, as follows:

"And I will not appeal any decision you have. If it’s a decision to keep me here in the prison, I will not appeal it, and I never will. I’d like the opportunity to apologize to Mrs. Lennon. I’ve thought about what it’s like in her mind to be there that night, to see the blood, to hear the screams, to be up all night with the Beatle music playing through her apartment window.

And there’s something else I want to say. I feel that I see John Lennon now not as a celebrity. I did then. I saw him as a cardboard cutout on an album cover. I was very young and stupid, and you get caught up in the media and the records and the music. And now I – I’ve come to grips with the fact that John Lennon was a person. This has nothing to do with being a Beatle or a celebrity or famous. He was breathing, and I knocked him right off his feet, and I don’t feel because of that I have any right to be standing on my feet here, you know, asking for anything. I don’t have a leg to stand on because I took his right out from under him, and he bled to death. And I’m sorry that ever occurred.

And I want to talk about Mrs. Lennon again. I can’t imagine her pain. I can’t feel it. I’ve tried to think about what it would be like if somebody harmed my family, and there’s just no way to make up for that, and if I have to stay in prison the rest of my life for that one person’s pain, everybody else to the side for a second, just that one person’s pain, I will.

Again, I’m not saying these things for – for you to give me any kind of consideration for letting me go. I’m saying that because they are real, and it happened to me, and I felt her pain then, and I can honestly say I didn’t want to feel it up until then. It’s a horrible thing to, you know, realize what you’ve done."