Judges Object To Prison Leave Electronic Supervision Would Release Felons

The state district judges still object to a recommendation of legislative evaluators for administrative release of screened felons to community supervision to save money.

In a letter to the legislative committee overseeing the Office of Performance Evaluations, the administrative director of the courts said the judges strongly opposed the substitution of electronically supervised release for actual prison terms or bootcamp evaluation sentences.

Patricia Tobias also said that at a recent District Judges Seminar, a number of judges expressed interest in a so-called sentencing commission as a way of assuring there is no severe disparity in sentencing across the state. But others, she emphasized, remained concerned that such a commission could lead to mandatory sentencing guidelines.

Gov. Phil Batt, who has pushed for sentencing alternatives to cut spiraling prison costs, has also been skeptical of the commission concept used in several other states.

“The District Judges strongly oppose allowing the Department of Correction to release an inmate on electronic monitoring during the defendants’s fix term,” Tobias wrote to the co-chairmen of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee. “This was seen as breaking faith with the public.”

The legislative evaluators urged release of imprisoned felons who meet specific criteria under a state law that allows inmates to be furloughed for certain purposes. Their report estimated the savings at $200,000 a year.

They also said doing the same with inmates sentenced to so-called retained jurisdiction where they do six months in a bootcamp and then are re-evaluated for probation or prison could save over $130,000.

The Correction Department immediately rejected the recommendation, declining to begin “second guessing the decisions of judges.”

“Sixty-one percent of the people who come into our system are the result of the failure of some sentencing alternative,” Correction Director James Spalding said.

And Tobias reinforced that view.

In the case of retained jurisdiction, she pointed out that judges use that option when they believe a defendant needs more discipline to abide by the conditions of probation or more evaluation before probation is authorized.

Electronic monitoring would provide neither, Tobias indicated, since in most cases, “the court has tried probation and is resorting to a period of retained jurisdiction as a last effort before the defendant is sent to the penitentiary.”