A California appeals court threw out a Dept. of Corrections policy that barred sex offenders from being released on early parole. This ban had been enforced – even if the sex offender was not serving a sentence for a sex crime. The majority opinion, written by Justice Dorothy C. Kim of Div. Five, only invalidates the department’s rule that registered sex offenders currently serving time for a conviction not requiring registration are prohibited from seeking early parole under a law created in 2016 by Proposition 57. It leaves open the question of whether those currently serving a sentence requiring sex offender registration are similarly barred.
The opinion comes in response to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed by Gregory Gadlin, a registered sex offender since his convictions for forcible rape and forcible child molestation in the 1980s. After Mr. Gadlin’s initial habeas corpus petition was denied, the DOC changed its’ regulations. The department noted, in its statement of reasons accompanying its adopted regulations, that “these sex offenses demonstrate a sufficient degree of violence and represent an unreasonable risk to public safety to require that sex offenders be excluded from nonviolent parole consideration.”
Writing for the majority, Justice Dorothy C. Kim: “The reference to ‘convicted’ and ‘sentenced,’ in conjunction with present eligibility for parole once a full term is completed, make clear that early parole eligibility must be assessed based on the conviction for which an inmate is now serving a state prison sentence (the current offense), rather than prior criminal history.
As is the case with most appellate decisions, the Court only directly addressed the specific issue before it, namely that the inmate shouldn’t be barred from CONSIDERATION for early parole because of a PREVIOUS conviction requiring sex offender registration. It is still up to the parole board to decide if he should be granted early parole. One of the Justices wrote that, in their opinion, the DOC does have the authority to bar those whose current conviction requires registration from consideration for early parole. Looks like all of their reasoning involves application of specific California statutes only. Most reasonable people believe that three strikes laws such as California’s are objectionable in the first place. In Michigan (where I live) the parole board used to treat inmates convicted of CSC differently than others up for parole, until the MDOC actually performed a recidivism study that proved paroled sex offenders were highly unlikely to re-offend. Wouldn’t it be nice if all laws were based on facts rather than phony propaganda.
Another judicial sleight-of-hand to legalize discrimination against registrants. Looks fine on paper, but the reality is that they’ll deny parole on him anyway. They’ll just find a more palatable reason for denial, like history of recidivism, without mentioning his registerable offense(s).