Letter from Ted Gaines

Introducing Senate Bill 391, the Parole Reform Act of 2011

In last month’s Gaines Gazette, I invited you all to attend the "Community Discussion on Public Safety" I hosted at the State Capitol on August 3rd, along with law enforcement leaders and victims’ rights organizations, to explore deficiencies in state law and identify potential legislative solutions to prevent tragedies - like the Jaycee Lee Dugard case - from ever occurring again.
On August 17, working closely with El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson, I introduced Senate Bill 391, the "Parole Reform Act of 2011." This bipartisan legislation will make a critical change to California’s parole system, helping keep dangerous, life-term prisoners incarcerated.

Senate Bill 391 seeks to reverse the California Supreme Court’s 2008 Lawrence decision, which requires the Parole Board to primarily look at the prisoner’s behavior while incarcerated - such as how much counseling they attended and whether they were on time to their work assignments - when deciding whether to put a felon back out on the street. Despite prisoner convictions for the most heinous of crimes Lawrence provides that "release on parole is the rule, rather than the exception."
This decision has led to a spike in paroles for dangerous life-sentence prisoners. Between 2005 and 2007, 521 lifers in California prisons were granted parole. Between 2008 and 2010 - the three years since the Lawrence decision - that number almost tripled, with 1329 lifers getting parole dates.
"The Parole Reform Act of 2011" will give the Parole Board the ability to consider the prisoner’s committing offense when evaluating them for parole and help them keep our most dangerous criminals right where they belong - behind bars.
Principal co-authors of Senate Bill 391 include Assemblymembers Susan Bonilla (D-Concord), Alyson Huber (D-El Dorado Hills) and Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber). Senators Mark Wyland (R-Escondido) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) and Assemblymembers Dan Logue (R-Penn Valley) and Beth Gaines (R-Roseville) are co-authors.


AB 391:
Existing law generally provides for the release of inmates from prison on parole. Existing law requires, in the case of any inmate sentenced pursuant to any provision of law other than specified provisions of law providing for determinate sentences, that a panel of 2 or more commissioners or deputy commissioners of the Board of Parole Hearings meet with an inmate one year prior to the inmate’s minimum eligible parole release date to set a parole release date. Existing law requires the panel, or the board if sitting en banc, to set a release date at the meeting unless it determines that the gravity of the current convicted offense or offenses, or that the timing and gravity of current or past convicted offense or offenses, is such that consideration of the public safety requires a more lengthy period of incarceration, and that a parole date cannot be fixed at the meeting.
This bill would instead require the panel or board to deny parole for this class of inmate unless the inmate proves that the gravity of the current convicted offense or offenses, or that the timing and gravity of current or past convicted offense or offenses, is such that consideration of the public safety does not require a more lengthy period of incarceration, and that a parole date can be fixed at the meeting. The bill would also make a related technical, nonsubstantive change.
The bill would authorize the board to base its decision to deny parole solely upon the circumstances of the current convicted offense or offenses or the inmate’s past criminal history, and would require the board to give greater weight and consideration to those factors than those of institutional behavior or psychiatric evaluations in determining whether the inmate has proven that he or she does not pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released from prison. The bill would provide that the facts of the commitment offense or offenses alone may support the ultimate conclusion that the inmate has not proven that he or she does not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety if released on parole.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.