I agree with local state Sen. Michael Nozzolio's belief, “if violent criminals are getting out of prison because of some procedural ambiguity, we need to change the law.”
Nozzolio is referring to dozens of murder convictions reversed by higher courts because of the fuzzy distinctions between intentional murder and murder by “depraved indifference to human life.”
In many New York cases, appellate courts have found a defendant should have been convicted of intentional murder instead of depraved indifference murder.
But the courts then free the defendant or reduce the crime to manslaughter because he cannot be retried for intentional murder.
However, I disagree with Nozzolio's complaints that the Spitzer administration has been granting too many paroles to A-1 violent felons, including those convicted of murder.
During the last two years of the Pataki administration, five to six percent of eligible A-1 violent felons were paroled.
This figure was 18 percent during the first year of the Spitzer administration.
Correctional Association of New York director Robert Gangi told the Associated Press that his organization had been concerned about the sharp decline in paroles during the Pataki administration, which was sued in federal court by A-1 felons, who after completing their minimum sentences, were repeatedly denied parole without regard to their institutional accomplishments.
“Perhaps the parole commissioners are now free of those political restraints and are now reviewing these cases on individual merits rather than political considerations,” Gangi said.
While there are some prisoners who should never be released, there are other prisoners who are repeatedly and unfairly being denied parole based on their past rather than on who they are today.
Rehabilitation and redemption - along with punishment and deterrence - should remain part of our criminal justice system.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said, we “ought not to run a system with a sign at the entrance for inmates saying ‘Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.'”
Joel Freedman
Canandaigua
In many New York cases, appellate courts have found a defendant should have been convicted of intentional murder instead of depraved indifference murder.
But the courts then free the defendant or reduce the crime to manslaughter because he cannot be retried for intentional murder.
However, I disagree with Nozzolio's complaints that the Spitzer administration has been granting too many paroles to A-1 violent felons, including those convicted of murder.
During the last two years of the Pataki administration, five to six percent of eligible A-1 violent felons were paroled.
This figure was 18 percent during the first year of the Spitzer administration.
Correctional Association of New York director Robert Gangi told the Associated Press that his organization had been concerned about the sharp decline in paroles during the Pataki administration, which was sued in federal court by A-1 felons, who after completing their minimum sentences, were repeatedly denied parole without regard to their institutional accomplishments.
“Perhaps the parole commissioners are now free of those political restraints and are now reviewing these cases on individual merits rather than political considerations,” Gangi said.
While there are some prisoners who should never be released, there are other prisoners who are repeatedly and unfairly being denied parole based on their past rather than on who they are today.
Rehabilitation and redemption - along with punishment and deterrence - should remain part of our criminal justice system.
As U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy said, we “ought not to run a system with a sign at the entrance for inmates saying ‘Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here.'”
Joel Freedman
Canandaigua
The Citizens' Say
There are 1 comment(s)
cm wrote on Jan 25, 2008 12:27 PM:
How about you murder,YOU get murdered?
Hook up the chair and lets rid our prisons and tax dollars spent keeping scum alive while recieving the best college education and medical attention OUR money can buy! "