California 'lifers' leaving prison at
record pace
Posted: Feb 25, 2014 7:44 AM PST Updated:
Feb 25, 2014 10:14 AM PST
SAN
FRANCISCO
(AP) -- For decades, California's
criminal justice policies ensured that murderers and others sentenced to life, with
the possibility of parole, could expect to die in prison. And most of the time,
they did.
Since Gov. Jerry Brown
assumed office in January 2011, a record number of inmates with life sentences
are winning parole. Brown has allowed the release of nearly 1,400 lifers, while
going along with the parole board about 82 percent of the time.
Brown's predecessor, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, authorized the release of 557 lifers during his six-year term,
sustaining the board at a 27 percent clip. Before that, Gov. Gray Davis over 3
years approved the release of two.
This dramatic shift in releases under
Brown comes as the state grapples with court orders to ease a decades-long
prison crowding crisis that has seen triple bunking, prison gyms turned into
dormitories and inmates shipped out of state.
Crime victims and their advocates have
said the releases are an injustice to the victims and that the parolees could
pose a danger to the public. More than 80 percent of lifers are in prison for
murder, while the remaining are mostly rapists and kidnappers.
"This is playing Russian roulette
with public safety," said Christine Ward, executive director of the Crime
Victims Action Alliance. "This is a change of philosophy that can be
dangerous."
Brown said he is bound by court orders
that require state officials to ease the stringent parole requirements that
have dramatically increased the time murderers spend in prison.
Today, an inmate convicted of first-degree
murders can expect to serve an average of 27 years- almost twice what it was
two decades ago before California became the fourth state to give governors the
politically fraught final decision on lifer paroles.
Since then, the number of lifers has grown
from 9,000 to 35,000 inmates, representing a quarter of the state prison
population. But two seminal California Supreme Court rulings in 2008 have
significantly eased tough parole restrictions.
The court ordered prison officials to
consider more than the severity of the applicant's underlying crimes. It ruled
that inmates' records while incarcerated plus their volunteer work should count
heavily in assessing early release.
State figures show that since the rulings,
the board has granted parole to nearly 3,000 lifers, including 590 last year
and a record 670 in 2012. In the three decades prior to the 2008 rulings, only
about 1,800 such prisoners were granted parole.
Davis reversed only two of 232 parole board
decisions granting parole between 1999 and 2002 - a rate of 2 percent.
Schwarzenegger sustained the board at a 27 percent clip during his seven years
in office when he was presented with 2,050 paroles granted by the board.
Brown has allowed 82 percent of the 1,590
paroles granted by the board.
Brown's office says he is operating under
a different legal landscape than previous governors, and that he is following
court rulings and a 23-year-old state law that gave governors the power to
block paroles of lifers who the state board found suitable for release.
A Stanford University
study of lifer paroles between 1990 and 2010 found that a murderer had a 6
percent chance of leaving prison alive since governors were given the power to
veto board decisions.
Gov. Pete Wilson, the first governor
vested with veto power, used it sparingly, though the parole board was approving
just a few dozen paroles a year compared with the hundreds the board has been
approving in recent years.
Between 1991 and when he left office in
January 1999, he approved 115 of the 171, or 67 percent, of the lifers the
board found suitable for release.
"If an individual is eligible for
parole and the board determines they are no longer a threat, the law says they
must be paroled unless there is firm evidence indicating they are still a
threat," Brown spokesman Evan Westrup said.
The few studies of recidivism among
released lifers including a Stanford
University report show
they re-offend at much lower rates than other inmates released on parole and
none has been convicted of a new murder.
Of the 860 murderers paroled between 1990
and 2010 that Stanford tracked, only five inmates committed new crimes and none
were convicted of murder. The average released lifer is in his mid-50s. Experts
say older ex-cons are less prone to commit new crimes than younger ones.
Brown has reversed the parole board. On
Friday, his office announced it blocked the parole of 100 inmates deemed fit by
the board for release and sent two others back to the board for
reconsideration.
One of those inmates found fit for release
by the board but blocked by Brown was James Mackey, a former University of Pacific
football player found guilty of shooting his victim with a crossbow and then
strangling him. Brown said Mackey hasn't sufficiently owned up to the crime.
"Until he can give a better
explanation for his actions," Brown wrote, "I do not think he is
ready to be released."
Ernest Morgan on the other hand, is a
lifer Brown did let free.
Morgan, a San Francisco man convicted of the shotgun
slaying of his 14-year-old stepsister burglarizing the family home, was turned
down for parole five times before the board granted him parole, only to be
overruled by Schwarzenegger.
Schwarzenegger wrote that Morgan posed
"a current, unreasonable risk to public safety." And he noted that
Morgan had at one point claimed that the shotgun had gone off accidentally,
although he later acknowledged his guilt to the parole board.
"So I was devastated when
Schwarzenegger denied my release," said Morgan, who now is majoring in
business management at San
Francisco State.
"I felt I was a political pawn who would never get out."
In 2011, Brown approved his release after
24 years in prison. Brown made no comment in granting Morgan his release.
Instead, the governor signaled his approval by taking no action within 30 days
of the parole board's decision becoming official.
"It's been a remarkable and
unexpected change," said Johanna Hoffman, Morgan's lawyer who has
represented hundreds of lifers vying for parole since becoming a California lawyer in
2008. "The overcrowding issue has a huge amount to do with it."
Jerry Brown
Jerry Brown
is the California state government governor, and Kathleen
Brown’s brother.
Note: Kathleen
Brown was the California state
government treasurer, is Jerry Brown’s
sister, and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Valerie
B. Jarrett is a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago,
the senior adviser for the Barack Obama
administration, and her great uncle is Vernon E.
Jordan Jr.
Vernon E. Jordan Jr. is Valerie B. Jarrett’s great uncle, a senior counsel for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP, an honorary
trustee at the Brookings Institution (think
tank), a senior
director at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund,
a life trustee at the Urban Institute (think
tank), a director at the American Friends of Bilderberg (think tank), and a 2008 Bilderberg conference participant (think
tank).
Akin,
Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP is the lobby firm for the Corrections Corporation of America.
Corrections Corporation of America
Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)
is a company that owns and manages private prisons and detention centers and
operates others on a concession basis. The company is the largest private
corrections company in the United
States and manages more than 67 facilities
with a designed capacity of 92,500 beds. CCA, incorporated in 1983 by three
businessmen with experience in government and corrections, is based in Nashville, Tennessee.[2]
Controversies involving the company include:
treatment of inmates and disclosure of oversight, lobbying efforts to conceal
details of operations, a lawsuit about gang influence in Idaho prison and
substantial falsification of records, co-operation with local law enforcement
in a school drug sweep, and the deadly 2012 riot in a Mississippi facility.
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Brookings Institution (think tank), the NAACP Legal
Defense & Educational Fund, the Urban
Institute (think tank), and the Center for American
Progress.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to
Promote Open Society, and a supporter for the Center for
American Progress.
John D.
Podesta is the chair & counselor for the Center for
American Progress, a counselor for the Barack Obama
administration, and his brother is Anthony T.
Podesta.
Anthony
T. Podesta is John D. Podesta’s
brother, and the founder & chairman for the Podesta
Group.
Podesta
Group was the lobby firm for the Corrections Corporation of
America.
Jonathan
Mantz was a lobbyist for the Podesta Group,
and the finance director for Jon S. Corzine.
Jon S.
Corzine’s finance director was Jonathan Mantz,
and the chairman & CEO for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
(Bailout Company).
Kathleen
Brown was a senior adviser for the Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
(Bailout Company), the California state
government treasurer, is Jerry Brown’s
sister, and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Jerry Brown
is the California state government governor, and Kathleen
Brown’s brother.
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