SECTION 1. Section 133A of chapter 127 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2008 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking in lines 1 through 8, inclusive, the first sentence and inserting in place thereof, the following:

Every prisoner who is serving a life sentence in a correctional institution of the commonwealth, except (1) prisoners confined to the hospital at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Bridgewater, (2) prisoners serving a life sentence for murder in the first degree, (3) prisoners serving more than one life sentence, either to be served consecutively or concurrently, and (4) prisoners sentenced to a second or subsequent life sentence; shall be eligible for parole, and the parole board shall, within 60 days before the expiration of 25 years of such sentence, conduct a public hearing before the full membership unless a member of the board is determined to be unavailable as provided in this section.

SECTION 2. Chapter 279 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2008 Official Edition, is hereby amended by striking section 24 in its entirety and inserting in place thereof the following section:

Section 24. If a convict is sentenced to the state prison, as an habitual criminal, the court shall not fix the term of imprisonment, but shall fix a maximum and a minimum term for which he may be imprisoned. The maximum term shall not be longer than the longest term fixed by law for the punishment of the crime of which he has be convicted, and the minimum term shall be a term set by the court, except that, where an alternative sentence to a house of correction is permitted for the offense, a minimum state prison term may not be less than one year.  In the case of a life sentence, the minimum term set by the court shall not be less than 25 years.