In California, Victims’ Families Fight for the Dead (Sup Ct ordered prison population redux)

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SAN DIEGO — The other day, at the sprawling state prison here, Linda and Alfred Tay sat in a cramped, windowless room, just feet from the man serving time for murdering their son.

Quarters are close at parole hearings.

They listened as the inmate made his case for parole. And then, exercising their rights as victims under California law, the Tays made their own case, pleading with the parole board not to grant freedom to the man who killed their son. It was the second time they had gone through this painful ritual.

“We constantly have a shadow hanging over our lives,” Ms. Tay told the commissioners. “When you suffer such a horrific crime, there is never closure.”

The rights of families like the Tays to be heard has been a fundamental tenet of a movement since California passed its first victims’ bill of rights three decades ago — a model that has been followed by states across the nation.

Until recently, most of these parole hearings — however difficult they may have been for the family members — had little practical importance: inmates serving life sentences for murder were virtually never set free. Even on the rare occasions when the parole board granted a release, California’s two previous governors — Gray Davis, a Democrat, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican — almost invariably overturned it.

But now, with a United States Supreme Court mandate in May to reduce the populations of California’s overcrowded prisons, Gov. Jerry Brown has thus far upheld 207 of the parole board’s 253 decisions to release convicted killers. Already this year, more release dates granted to killers have been allowed to stand than in any year since governors got the power to reverse them.

(...)

California has led the way in passing victims’ rights laws. It became the first state to allow victims’ families to speak at parole hearings, and in 1982 passed a victims’ bill of rights — one of the first major pieces of such legislation in the country. More than 30 states have amended their constitutions to include similar measures.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/us/20parole.html?pagewanted=all

The movie Better Luck Tomorrow is a fictionalized account of the murder of Stuart Tay, the son of the Tays profiled in this article. Maybe if the article brought that up like i just did it may connect with more people. And why are MURDERERS being released under this plan, as this article reports, but nary a mention of drug offenders? Cue Antoine Dodson, anyone?