USA - California. Judge Terrence Van Oss overturned a jury's decision to send John Joseph Lydon to death row.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Terrence Van Oss overturned a jury's decision to send John Joseph Lydon to death row. Lydon, 40, was serving a 69-years-to-life term at Deuel Vocational Institution for having previously murdered a cellmate when he strangled to death another man at the Tracy prison in 2010. Judge Oss instead commuted his sentence today to life in prison without the possibility of parole, taking into account the effects Lydon's abusive childhood has had on his development. Lydon's victim at Deuel, Jonathan Guy Alexander, was serving a sentence for a child molestation conviction just as was Lydon's first murder victim.