HISTORICAL BACKGROUND of Elderly Parole Hearing Bills:
Summary of the OLD Elderly Parole Hearing (50/15) Senate Bill that did NOT pass a few years ago, was SB224.
The original draft of Senate Bill [Sen. Carol Liu (Democrat), author of Senate Bill 224 (SB224)] required the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) to conduct a ELDERLY PAROLE HEARING for offenders sentence to State prison who have reached 50 years of age and have been incarcerated 15 years or more. SB 224 was withdrawn from consideration because it was felt that Bills which required a 2/3 majority vote on the legislative floor, could not be met.
NOTE: This would have been an expansion from the existing BPH regulation (from 3-Judge Panel) that was established in October 2014 to allow 60 yr. old inmates who have been incarcerated 25 years (60/25) or more to go to an Elderly Parole Hearing.
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Summary of the NEW Elderly Parole Hearing (50/20) - AB3234, being signed by Gov.
Abstract & Author: Philip Y. Ting: California Assembly member Democrat District 19
Existing law establishes the Elderly Parole Program for the purpose of reviewing the parole suitability of inmates who are 60 years of age or older and who have served a minimum of 25 years of continuous incarceration on their sentence. This bill would modify the minimum age limitation for that program to 50 years of age and instead require the inmate to have served a minimum of 20 years of continuous incarceration in order to be eligible for that program.
On 9/15/20, California State Legislature Enrolled and presented AB3234, the new (Elderly Parole Hearing Bill) to the Governor at 3 p.m. for his signature of Approval.
Since AB 3234 has passed and from all indications will be signed by the Gov, elderly parole goes from the current 60 yrs old and at least 25 yrs on incarceration (60/25 requirement) to 50/20 requirement. What a WIN!!!
Although the Bill specifically excludes 3Xers, as did the previous bill that codified elderly parole. It appears according the Vanessa (LSA guru and founder) --> that BPH's legal staff stated [in reference to 3Xers and elderly: ]
“We would continue to follow the three judge panel (3JP) order criteria for those inmates who are excluded from elderly parole under AB3234 for as long as the three judge panel order remains intact. This will require us [BPH] to set up a double track process for those eligible under the Penal Code and those under the three judge panel order.”
So for now, and as long as the 3JP is still around, 3’Xers will continue to be included in elderly parole considerations.
The BIG QUESTION remains: Will BPH continue the 3’Xers under the current 60/25 requirement or will BPH apply the new 50/20 requirement to the 3X'er - STAY TUNE....
Keep in mind that the whole Intent under 3JP was to reduce the population. Thus, excluding an entire section of 3X'er elderly inmates (that are not 50/20 candidates) would conflict with the goal to reduce the population. We speculate that BPH will apply the 50/20 elderly age requirement across the Board to all those inmates.
