Parolable lifers – the
parole board
reinterprets the law
In Michigan, except for first-degree
murder which carries a mandatory penalty of life without parole,
the most serious offenses, such as, second-degree murder, armed
robbery, and first-degree criminal sexual conduct, carry a penalty
of life or any term of years. The judge can impose a life
sentence or pick both the minimum and maximum of an indeterminate
term, such as 10-20 or 20-40 years. For these crimes,
the life term is parolable.
For parolable lifers whose
offenses were committed before Oct. 1992, the parole board obtains
jurisdiction after the prisoner has served 10 years. For
thosewhose offenses were later, jurisdiction
comes at 15 years.
There aresome extra steps in the process for paroling lifers.
The sentencing court must be given an opportunity to object,
and, if there is no judicial objection, the board must conduct
a public hearing before it can make a final decision to
grant parole. But parole eligibility under the “lifer
law” is what distinguishes “second-degree” life sentences
from those imposed for first-degree murder.
Historically,
judges imposed life sentences in the expectation that meaningful
parole consideration would occur after 10 years and that, if
the defendant conducted himself or herself well in prison, release
after 12 or 14 or 16 years was likely. Some judges told defendants
this right at sentencing. There were never a lot of lifers
paroled each year because there didn’t used to be that many
who were eligible. But everyone in the system – prosecutors,
defense attorneys, judges and parole board members assumed well
into the 1980’s that lifers could earn their release just like
other prisoners could.
This assumption
has now been dramatically altered. The board has become
less and less inclined to parole lifers, and for the past several
years it has publicly taken the position that “life means life”.
Despite the intentions of the sentencing judges and the assumptions
that underlay plea bargains, the board has unilaterally decided
that, except in extraordinary cases, lifers who became eligible
for release after 10 years should nonetheless spend their entire
lives in prison. As a result of this new philosophy, over
1,000 parolable lifers who have served more than 10 years are
now stacked up in our prisons. Many were first offenders;
many were very young when they committed their crimes; many
could not even receive a life term under current sentencing
guidelines, and many have now served 20, 25 or 30 years.
The procedures
for reviewing lifers have also changed drastically. The
board now only has to reconsider a lifer once every five years.
And that reconsideration does not have to include a face-to-face
interview. The board also doesn’t calculate parole guidelines
scores for lifers, as it does for other prisoners. The
board can simply look at the prisoner’s file, then send the
person a notice saying it has no interest in proceeding.
The whole situation is circular. Because the board has
decided it doesn’t want to parole lifers, it follows procedures
that insulate it from obtaining the sort of information that
might persuade it to consider paroling any particular lifer.
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