Too Little Compassionate Release in US Federal Prisons?

A joint report by Human Rights Watch and Families Against Mandatory Minimums

This 128-page report is the first comprehensive examination of how compassionate release in the federal system works. Congress authorized compassionate release because it realized that changed circumstances could make continued imprisonment senseless and inhumane, Human Rights Watch and FAMM said. But if the Bureau of Prisons refuses to bring prisoners’ cases to the courts, judges cannot rule on whether release is warranted. Since 1992, the Bureau of Prisons has averaged annually only two dozen motions to the courts for early release, out of a prison population that now exceeds 218,000. Read more...

California Paroling Medically Incapacitated Inmate

COALINGA, Calif. -- A California convict in prison for a violent robbery is the first in the state granted parole under a new law allowing release of medically incapacitated inmates.

A state Board of Parole Hearings panel ruled Wednesday that 48-year-old Craig Lemke, who has served less than four years of a 68-year sentence, poses no threat to public safety because he's a quadriplegic.  Read more...

In 1st CA medical parole case, inmate rejected

A state board on Tuesday denied medical parole to a convicted rapist who has been a quadriplegic since he was attacked in prison 10 years ago, arguing that the inmate's verbal threats in prison to female staffers proves he would still pose a threat to public safety if he were to be released.

Steven Martinez, 42, was the first California inmate to be considered for medical parole under a law that took effect this year and is aimed at saving taxpayers the expense of providing medical care and security to incapacitated inmates. Under the law, inmates who are "permanently medically incapacitated with a medical condition" that makes them "unable to perform activities of basic daily living" may be released if they do not pose a threat to public safety.  Read more...

Despite medical parole law, hospitalized prisoners are costing California taxpayers millions

With California mired in a budget crisis, guarding incapacitated prisoners at outside hospitals continues to cost taxpayers millions as the state figures out how to implement a new medical parole law.

Reporting from Vacaville, Calif. — A degenerative nerve disease has left 57-year-old California inmate Edward Ortiz semi-paralyzed in a private Bay Area hospital for the last year. The breathing tube in his throat tethers him to a ventilator at one end of the bed; steel bracelets shackle his ankles to safety rails at the other.

Still, California taxpayers are shelling out roughly $800,000 a year to prevent his escape. The guards watching Ortiz one day last week said department policy requires one corrections officer at the foot of his bed around the clock and another guard at the door. A sergeant also has to be there, to supervise.  Read more...

Governor OKs medical parole for incapacitated inmates

Schwarzenegger signs 21 bills, including one allowing the state to parole comatose and physically incapacitated inmates and another restricting motorcycle modifications. He vetoes 14 bills.

Reporting from Sacramento — State prisons can release comatose and physically incapacitated inmates on medical parole under a measure approved Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that is expected to save California at least $46 million annually.
 
The legislation was one of 21 bills the governor signed, including a ban on modifying motorcycles to make them more noisy, a scale-back of an early release program at county jails and a 5-year extension allowing shoemakers to import kangaroo parts to California.  Read More...