Fairness for Prisoners' Families
Parole Rule Would Keep Inmates Behind Bars Longer Policy would force certain offenders to serve 65 to 90 percent of sentence
Steven H. Pollak November 18, 2005
The State Board of Pardons and Paroles is scheduled to vote today to replace a potentially unconstitutional policy that required inmates convicted of some of the most serious crimes to serve 90 percent of their sentences behind bars.
The vote comes almost eight months after Judge T. Jackson Bedford Jr. of Fulton County Superior Court called the policy “ineffective” and stated that the rule had “no force and effect” for five inmates who challenged it. Griffin v. Nix, No. 2004CV92152 (Fult. Super. filed March 3, 2005).
A week after Bedford’s order, which affected only the plaintiffs in the Fulton case, the parole board announced it would not appeal the decision and would apply the ruling to all cases previously governed by the 90 percent rule. According to board spokeswoman Schereé Lipscomb, the decision placed 7,600 inmates back under parole rules that grant eligibility for release after one-third of a prison sentence.
If three of the board’s five members approve the new policy, it would establish criteria for determining parole eligibility for inmates convicted of the 20 offenses previously governed by the 90 percent rule, as well as three of the most serious drug offenses.
The parole board would classify those inmates under a new crime severity level—Level 8—under which offenders would serve either 65 percent, 75 percent or 90 percent of their sentences in prison, depending on how well they score on a parole success assessment.
The policy would not apply retroactively; it would affect only offenders who commit crimes after Jan. 1. All other inmates would remain subject to the parole guidelines in place before the board adopted the 90 percent policy in 1997.
The board last month invited the public to comment on the revised policy and thus far has received no written correspondence, Lipscomb said.
But dissent is expected prior to today’s meeting from a group called Fairness for Prisoners’ Families, which is affiliated with the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. The group plans to conduct a press conference at which prisoners’ relatives and lawyers are expected to speak out against the proposed policy because it would enhance the minimum parole eligibility beyond one-third of a sentence.
According to Sara Totonchi, the public policy director for the Southern Center, more than 3,000 people belong to the Fairness group.
Totonchi, on behalf of the Southern Center, sent a letter to the parole board Thursday asking the members to delay voting on or adopting the new policy. She also asked that the board consider making the parole process more transparent and questioned the fiscal impact of the policy.
Totonchi’s letter cites the Georgia Department of Corrections’ 2004 Annual Report, which said that the state’s prison population has risen every year since 1994, from 27,984 to the current population of 48,619.
“The proposed rule change will directly contradict efforts by state officials who are desperately seeking ways to reduce the overall population,” Totonchi wrote.
The board adopted the 90 percent rule in 1997. It applied to those convicted of such crimes as child molestation, statutory rape, aggravated assault with a weapon and voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. The policy was applied retroactively, but it did not affect parole eligibility for those required to serve 100 percent of their sentences under the “seven deadly sins” (murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, rape, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy and aggravated sexual battery) or the “two-strikes” laws.
The resolution stated, “The Board believes that a further amendment to its statutorily mandated guidelines will further enhance public safety and make Georgia the toughest state in the nation for ‘time-served’ for violent felonies and residential burglaries.”
In 2002, U.S. District Senior Judge William C. O’Kelley granted a challenge to the retroactive application of the 90 percent policy. In the case of Coleman Jackson, convicted in 1999 for a 1996 aggravated assault, O’Kelley concluded that applying the 90 percent policy violated the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution, in that it would retroactively increase the punishment inflicted. The ruling, however, was limited to Jackson’s case. Jackson v. State Board of Pardons and Paroles, No. 2:01CV068 (N.D. Ga. May 29, 2002).
The winning lawyer in both cases, Atlanta’s McNeill Stokes, said he believes the parole board is continuing to keep inmates in prison even after abandoning the 90 percent policy.
“They’ve been substantially extending the sentences to serve of all inmates in these 20 categories that were previously under the 90 percent rule,” he said. “They’re simply subtracting a month or two and continuing their sentence.”
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