BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 68
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 10, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Mike Gatto, Chair
AB 68 (Maienschein) - As Amended: April 1, 2013
Policy Committee: Public
SafetyVote: 7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill requires the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) to provide notice to the county of
commitment, the county of last legal residence, and the county
of proposed release, of any medical parole release. Requires
notice be provided at least 30 days prior to any medical parole
hearing or medical parole release.
FISCAL EFFECT
Minor, absorbable state costs to provide a small number of
additional notices.
There have been 50 medical paroles since the advent of medical
parole in 2011, and under current law CDCR is already required
to provide a fairly wide range of notice regarding parole
hearings and paroles, including 90-day notice to victims, and
60-day notice of the parole of violent felons to law enforcement
in the county of release.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author and proponents - chiefly
law enforcement - the additional notification requirements
will ensure local officials are notified in all medical parole
cases, and not just the officials in the county of the actual
proposed parole release, but officials in the county of
commitment and the county of last legal residence.
2)Opposition . The California Attorneys for Criminal Justice
(CACJ) suggest the bill is unnecessary and is essentially an
AB 68
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effort to discourage medical parole.
According to CACJ, "The proposed language in AB 68, affording
notice of parole hearings is, although hypothetically useful,
a practice which provides no benefit to the citizens of
California. ?one must ask whether advance notice to county of
last legal residence is included for any reason other than to
afford an opportunity to object to the release. Although such
objection may be understandable in the conventional parole
setting, for incapacitated prisoners posing no reasonable
risk, no functional purpose is served by this advance notice.
Granted this perspective, CACJ believes the bill should be
withdrawn or amended to limit notice to concurrent notice with
release."
3)Current law provides for medical parole, whereby an inmate
(lifers and death row inmates are not eligible) who is
permanently medically incapacitated with a condition that
renders him or her permanently unable to perform activities of
basic daily living, and requires 24-hour care, may be granted
medical parole if the Board of Parole Hearings determines the
conditions under which the inmate would be released would not
pose a threat to public safety.
Analysis Prepared by : Geoff Long / APPR. / (916) 319-2081