Category: Probation and Parole

Virginia legislation could release dangerous murderers and tie the hands of the parole board

by · Dec 11, 2025 2:09 pm

In the wake of the November election, with the governor’s veto threat removed, the Virginia legislature is proceeding to pass California-style legislation that takes soft-on-crime to new levels. Hans Bader has this post with the above title at Liberty Unyielding.

In a nutshell, the bill would make the crime that a prison inmate committed irrelevant to the parole decision for those inmates who were under 18 at the time they committed major felonies. Continue reading . . .

Supreme Court November Arguments

by · Nov 3, 2025 11:32 am

The U.S. Supreme Court’s November argument calendar begins today. It is Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week and next except for Veterans’ Day, next Tuesday.

Here are the criminal and law-enforcement-related civil cases on the docket:

Today, Nov. 3: Rico v. United States.  Whether the fugitive-tolling doctrine applies in the context of supervised release.

Next Monday, Nov. 10: Landor v. La. Dept. Corrections:  Whether an individual may sue a government official in his individual capacity for damages for violations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 12: Fernandez v. United States:  Whether a combination of “extraordinary and compelling reasons” that may warrant a discretionary sentence reduction under 18 U. S. C. §3582(c)(1)(a) can include reasons that may also be alleged as grounds for vacatur of a sentence under 28 U. S. C. §2255.

Next Wednesday, Nov. 12: Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. United States:  Nonretroactive changes in sentencing law as grounds for sentence reduction. Continue reading . . .

Judge Resentences Menendez Brothers

by · Oct 22, 2025 11:29 am

A Los Angeles judge has resentenced the Menendez brothers, originally serving life without parole, to 50-years-to-life.  ABC News reports that the brothers, who murdered their parents with shotguns in 1989,  are immediately eligible for parole.  Later in the story reporter Emily Shapiro writes,

“It could take months before Erik and Lyle Menendez are assigned a parole date for the resentencing case. They are eligible for that parole date right away, as inmates with a sentence of 25 years-to-life or longer can get their hearing during the 25th year of incarceration, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”

The 25-year eligibility comes under California’s “youth offender parole” statute. It was originally enacted for inmates under 18 at the time of the crime to address problems created by U.S. Supreme Court decisions. However, the Legislature later expanded it to all inmates under 26 at the time of the crime.

Parole for LWOP-Sentenced Murderers

by · Jul 21, 2025 9:47 am

In the many, many debates that I have had on capital punishment over the years, almost all of the opponents have promised the audience that we don’t need the death penalty to prevent release of murderers back in the community because we have this wonderful alternative of life without parole. The badly worded poll questions that opponents love to cite (see this post) involve offering life without parole as the alternative.

One of the problems with that argument is that there is no such thing as life in prison with no possibility of parole. Future governors, legislatures, or courts may create a possibility of parole even for the very worst murderers.

Tim Cruz has this article in the City Journal, titled Why Is Massachusetts Releasing First-Degree Murderers? Continue reading . . .

Revoking Federal Supervised Release

by · Jun 20, 2025 9:10 am

There is no parole, as such, in the federal sentencing system, but a sentence can include a period of “supervised release” following the term of incarceration. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a)(2)(A), when imposing the original sentence, a federal judge can consider, among other factors, “the need for the sentence imposed” “to reflect the seriousness of the offense, to promote respect for the law, and to provide just punishment for the offense.” Can the judge consider that factor when deciding on a revocation of supervised release?

No, the Supreme Court decided today in Esteras v. United States, No. 23-7483. Why not? The simple answer is because Congress said so. The statute on supervised release, 18 U.S.C. § 3583(c), specifies the factors. Many of the factors used to set the initial sentence are included, but that one is conspicuously absent.

So why is there any difficulty at all? Continue reading . . .

California Legislature Considering Early Parole for Murderers and Rapists

by · May 23, 2025 10:08 am

The California Legislature is considering moving up parole hearings and releases for murderers and rapists. The proponents of this change may be having some difficulty rounding up the votes, and they have employed a legislative trick to buy more time. People with sense need to use this time to tell their representatives to vote down this atrocity instead.

In California, sentences of X-to-life (as opposed to a set term of years) are generally reserved for the very worst criminals. Murderers make up the lion’s share of inmates with these “indeterminate sentences.” Most second-degree murders draw a sentence of 15-to-life, and first-degree murder without special circumstances draws 25-to-life. Some repeated or exceptionally heinous sex crimes also draw similar sentences. The Three Strikes Law — which was substantially narrowed in an initiative in 2012 — also provides an indeterminate sentence for the third conviction of felonies from lists designated “serious” or “violent,” but these lists are considerably narrower than their names imply. Assault with a deadly weapon is not on the “violent” list, for example.

Before 2016, all of the minimums above were real minimums. Credits for good behavior or program participation could shorten fixed-year sentences, but they did not move up the minimum eligible parole dates (MEPD) for the X-to-life sentences, with a few minor exceptions. Proposition 57 passed in that year. The state prison department, called the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), subsequently claimed that Prop. 57 authorized it to move up MEPDs via credits, untroubled by the fact that the initiative does not contain a single word about MEPDs.

CJLF and three crime victims filed suit over this and other issues with CDCR’s credit regulations. The Sacramento Superior Court agreed with us regarding MEPDs and issued a writ of mandate to cease early parole hearings and early releases. CDCR appealed, and the writ was stayed pending appeal as to the early hearings but remains in effect as to early releases. Oral argument in CJLF v. CDCR, No. C100274, was heard in the Third District Court of Appeal last Tuesday, May 20.

Assembly Member Ash Kalra is wringing his hands over the murderers and rapists being deprived of their early releases. If he cares anything at all about the victims and their families, he hasn’t shown it. So he took an unrelated bill about prison visitation, amended out all its text, and substituted language that would authorize CDCR to move up MEPDs this way. Continue reading . . .

Early release program for aging inmates helps clear out California prisons, but at what cost?

by · Oct 28, 2024 4:39 pm

Joe Nelson has this Oct. 21 article in the San Bernardino Sun, now mirrored without the paywall at the East Bay Times.

Thirty years ago, before he was sentenced for repeatedly raping his 14-year-old niece in Moreno Valley, Cody Klemp told a probation officer that if he was ever released from custody he would kill the girl for reporting him.

It seemed like he would never get that opportunity when a judge sentenced him to 170 years in prison.

Now, however, Klemp awaits a parole hearing Thursday, Oct. 24, that could free him under a program designed to reduce California’s prison population and slash medical costs by releasing aging, often infirm inmates. The Elderly Parole Program offers parole hearings for those at least 50 years old who have served 20 continuous years of incarceration — even murderers and violent sex offenders.

Klemp’s status page on the California prison department site indicates he was denied parole for five years. But the Board of Parole Hearings has the authority to move that date up any time it feels like it. They are supposed to consider the victims in such decisions, but I have not yet seen any indication that they actually do.

And yes, you read that right. The California Legislature actually defined “elderly” as over 50. Continue reading . . .

U.S. Supreme Court Takes Up Supervised Release Revocation Case

by · Oct 21, 2024 9:27 am

The United States Supreme Court issued an orders list this morning, taking up one criminal case. In Esteras v. United States, No. 23-7483, the high court will ponder what factors a federal district court may consider when deciding whether to revoke the supervised release of a federal convict. It is, once again, a question of interpretation of federal criminal statutes which will have little, if any, impact on the state courts that handle most criminal cases in this country. Continue reading . . .

Notorious Rapist Paroled Under Prop. 57 as “Nonviolent Offender”

by · Sep 10, 2024 10:47 am

Dan Walters has this column at CalMatters:

Eight years ago, then-Gov. Jerry Brown hoodwinked California voters into making it easier for violent sex offenders to shorten their prison sentences.

A month ago, the 2016 ballot measure that Brown sponsored, Proposition 57, allowed one of the state’s most notorious serial rapists, Andrew Luster, to be granted parole after serving less than half of his 50-year prison term. Three weeks later the Legislature passed a bill to close the loophole in Prop. 57 that could allow Luster to be released.

When Brown proposed Prop. 57 to voters, he said it would benefit only those convicted of nonviolent crimes by allowing them to qualify more easily for parole.

“It’s well-balanced,” Brown said at the time. “It’s thoughtful.”

Continue reading . . .

The Consequences of Early Release

by · May 28, 2024 9:58 am

Leniency to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent far too often. CWB Chicago reports yet another example. Zebedee Thomas has been charged in Cook County with rape and other crimes committed last August. A DNA match confirms identity. Thomas previously pleaded guilty to a sexual assault on a 7-year-old committed while a juvenile. In 2022, he was sentenced to four years for unlawful imprisonment in Kentucky.

Why was a repeating violent criminal who had been sentenced to four years in prison back on the street the very next year to commit yet another horrific crime? Continue reading . . .