Lifer Freed in Challenge to Tough Parole Changes
Inmates sentenced to life in prison are filing constitutional challenges to changes in parole procedures that subsequently made it tougher to win early release.
In a Michigan case, a Detroit federal judge ruled that such changes violated the ex post facto clause that bars the government from increasing punishments retroactively, Adam Liptak writes in his Sidebar column for the New York Times. Judge Marianne Battani ruled in the case of Gerald Hessell, sentenced to life in prison in 1977 for his role in plot against a suspected informant that left a woman dead.
“I was told by my attorney at the time that I could look to do about 12 to 15 years provided I had a clean record,” Hessell told the newspaper. “It was a 31-year fight to get out.”
A judge in Pennsylvania also found a constitutional violation last year in a similar case. A federal appeals court sent the case back to the judge last Monday to consider whether the plaintiff had standing to sue.
