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In the late 1960s, a gun owned by a Los
Angeles man named Lupe was used in a robbery. The two
thieves botched the heist, fatally shot the victim, and
spent a couple years in the pen. Lupe wasn't at the scene,
and no one ever contended that he was. However, for owning
the murder weapon, Lupe received an open-ended sentence --
seven years to life.
Twenty-nine years late, Lupe's wife,
Teresa, possesses an unshakable belief that her 57-year-old
husband will one day stroll out of the prison gates that
have shaped his existence. "My husband isn't an angel," she
told us, "but he doesn't belong in prison anymore." (The
couple's names have been changed at their
request.)
But the possibility of parole for Lupe
and the 19,500 other state prisoners serving indeterminate
life sentences is practically nonexistent. Each year the
Board
of Prison Terms flies around the
state hearing testimony from more than 2000 inmates from
among California's 33 penal colonies. After questioning
inmates about their ability to rejoin society, the board has
full discretion over who should be released. Over the past
decades, the board has chosen to release fewer
inmates.
Since 1991, when Gov. Pete Wilson began
making appointments to the parole board, the percentage of
term-to-life prisoners paroled has plummeted from 5 percent
to less than half a percent, according to California legal
newspaper the Daily Journal. In fiscal year 1996-97 the
board recommended release for only 13 inmates.
And Gov.
Gray Davis is turning out to be
even less forgiving. Earlier this year the board urged
parole for five livers; Davis vetoed the recommendations and
kept all five behind bars.
Democratic state senator Richard Polanco
of Los Angeles is fighting to diminish the parol board's
power. The senator has introduced S.B. 128, aimed at
establishing concrete standards for granting or denying
release. During its first meeting with a lifer, the board
would present a "performance plan" with benchmarks the
inmate must meet to be freed. The board would be mandated to
parole inmates who met those predetermined
standards.
Capitol watchers tell us the bill faces
an uphill battle. Its fiercest opposition will come from
victims' rights proponents and law enforcement
professionals. "When you're looking at life prisoners,
you're looking at the bottom of the barrel," Jeff Thompson,
chief of government relations for the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association, the prison guards'
union, told us.
Board of Prison Terms spokesperson Denise
Schmidt told us her office had no comment on the Polanco
bill. "Public safety is always the board's uppermost
concern. Regardless of the length of time some of these
inmates have served, there is a risk."
Advocates for prisoners argue that the
system should release inmates who are older, have shown a
commitment to living peacefully, and have disproportionately
long sentences relative to their crimes. But they say the
parole process is stacked against those behind
bars.
Board members -- known as commissioners
-- are appointed by the governor to four-year terms. Besides
current chair James W. Nielsen, who was a Republican state
senator, the commissioners are all ex-law enforcement
officials.
The commissioners earn nearly $90,000
annually. The state-appointed attorneys who represent most
inmates seeking parole are paid $23.75 an hour -- well below
paralegal pay. These attorneys are allowed to work only six
hours on each case.
Attorneys working parole hearings tell us
the hearings typically last 30 to 45 minutes, with
deliberations taking as little as five minutes.
"There is no room [in the brief
hearings] to truly cover the complicated nature of
people's lives and offenses," says Cynthia Chandler, an
attorney with Women's PLAN, who represents terminally ill
women at parole hearings. "The process is inherently
corrupt. Frankly, I think it would be more humane to admit
[to the inmates] that the whole thing is completely
political."
Chandler thought she had a decent chance
of getting lifer Patty Contreras paroled. After all, the
woman weighed less than 80 pounds, was confined to a
wheelchair, and was dying of AIDS. The board denied the
parole and recommended that Contreras participate in group
therapy. The medical wing of the prison in which Contreras
was dying didn't even have a group-counseling
program.
The board eventually freed Contreras, in
April 1997. She died a month ago. The attorney considers the
victory "a fluke" brought about by grassroots letter-writing
pressure.
Cases like those of Contreras and Lupe
are only going to increase. The California prison system is
in the midst of dual HIV and hepatitis C epidemics; some
40,000 of the state's 160,000 inmates are over 40 years old;
and thanks to "Three Strikes," 100 men and women enter the
system each month with indeterminate life sentences.
Slightly less than half of those prisoners are doing time
for nonviolent offenses.
Lupe had his most recent chance at
freedom in December 1998; the board told him to come back in
2002.
Teresa figures she'll have to wait for
another governor to see her husband go free. "I think the
best bet we have is for Davis to get out of office," she
told us. "What an ugly place California is turning out to
be."
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