Baumes law

The Baumes law was a statute passed by New York State in 1926.

Written by and named after Senator Caleb H. Baumes, the chairman of the New York State Crime Commission, the law called for the automatic life imprisonment of any criminal convicted of more than three separate felonies, without regard to the nature of the offense or any attendant circumstances. It also permitted longer sentences for first-time offenders, denied parole to inmates who had used firearms in the commission of their crimes, and mandated that prisoners could not begin receiving credit for good behavior for parole purposes until they had served the minimum sentence for their offense. By 1930, twenty-three states had adopted similar standards, all of which were commonly referred to as "Baumes laws".