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RALEIGH – Gov. Bev Perdue said Thursday that the state will not release 20 convicted felons that were scheduled to be let go next Thursday. All the inmates were sentenced to life in prison in the 1970s.

At the time, North Caroline law listed life in prison as 80 years. The court agreed new laws and credit for good behavior mean the convicted violent offenders completed their sentences.

But in a call from China Thursday, Perdue said she would block the prisoners' release.

“I think it's one of the most appalling things I've ever heard,” she said. “I cannot imagine that our system of laws works in such a way that people who are in prison for a life sentence for rape or murder, now we're being told there's nothing we can do and I have to let them out. I refuse that kind of discussion.”

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper agreed. In a news release Thursday evening, he said, “In the interest of public safety and to ensure that sentences and release dates are properly calculated according to law, we have advised the Department of Correction that no prisoners have to be released until further direction from the courts.”

Former state Supreme Court Judge Bob Orr says state leaders can examine how the Department of Corrections calculated time off for good behavior for the inmates, but the state can't keep them behind bars just because they were once violent criminals.

“If the issue is about how the rules determined by her Department of Corrections applies in these cases, then she certainly does have some authority over those employees to make sure the rules are properly carried out. And if they're being misinterpreted so as to let these guys out early, it would be her responsibility to make sure that is stopped,” Orr, the executive director for the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, said.

“If the laws that the General Assembly passed mandate that these individuals be released, whether she likes it or not, she has a constitutional responsibility to follow the law,” he said.

Perdue believes the Department of Corrections may have given the inmates too much credit for time served. She hopes the courts will agree and keep them behind bars.

An estimated 120 prisoners could soon be set free because of the ruling.