Bill to prevent sex offenders from elderly parole killed by committee

A Senate Bill that would prevent convicted sexual offenders from receiving elderly parole was killed in a Senate Public Safety Committee this week; the legislation had been authored by regional Senator Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) and Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones (R-San Diego), with principal co-author Josh Hoover (R-Folsom). The failure of the bill to advance in the legislature comes as a huge disappointment to the lawmakers who aimed to alter California law, which allows convicted sex offenders to become eligible for the state's Elderly Parole Program. Senator Niello explained as the law stands, if an inmate is at least 50 years old and has served at least 20 years of their sentence, they can apply for elderly parole. There are exceptions to this law, but currently, sexual offenses are not one of those exceptions. Senate Bill 1278 was presented in the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday; the legislation aimed to exclude criminals convicted of rape, sodomy, lewd and lascivious acts and sex offenses from being eligible for elderly parole, but it did not advance out of the Senate Public Safety Committee. Public attention and scrutiny over the Elderly Parole Program reached a fever pitch after two highly controversial decisions came down from the Board of Parole Hearings recently, which granted parole to 56-year-old Gregory Vogelsang, who was convicted of molesting multiple children in the Sacramento area in the 1990s, and 64-year-old David Allen Funston, who was also convicted of sexually assaulting multiple children in Sacramento and Placer counties in the 1990s. Niello expressed extreme disappointment after the legislation was killed by the Senate Committee. "I am incredibly disheartened that my bill to provide victims protection and keep sex offenders in prison and serving their sentence did not receive the votes needed to pass the Senate Public Safety Committee," said Niello. "What makes this even more difficult is that this week is the annual observance of National Crime Victims' Rights Week. I would ask the legislators who stopped this elderly parole reform bill from moving forward to reflect on whether uplifting survivors and honoring victims is ever their priority." The Elderly Parole Program stems from the U.S. Supreme Court order in 2011 for California to address its prison overcrowding problem. The court alleged the 8th Amendment rights of California inmates were being violated due to poor medical care, which was cruel and unusual punishment. According to a report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), the court's ruling mandated California reduce about 34,000 from its inmate population within two years. At the time, state prisons were operating at about 180 percent over capacity; finding ways to dramatically reduce the prison population by the amount the court wanted was challenging, according to the LAO. In 2014, a federal court order mandated California to enact the elderly parole program, which allowed inmates 60 and older who served at least 25 years of their sentence, to be eligible for parole. The exceptions in those cases were those who were sentenced to life without parole. In 2021, the California legislature voted to lower the eligibility threshold to 50 years old and 20 years of a sentence served. Despite the end of Niello's attempt to change California's eligibility parole program this year, another piece of legislation which addresses this issue was written by Democrat Assemblywoman Stephanie Nguyen; that did make it out of the Senate Public Safety Committee this month. The legislation moves on to the Appropriations Committee.