Start allowing people parole it's that simple we cannot have parole if no one is able to be parole out .

I have had many years of experience demonstrating the need for reform of our current parole system, including the steps outlined in Delegate Hope's bill. This has included appointment as a member of the Governor's Commission on Parole Review in 2015, work with Delegate Sickles and others on prior proposed legislative reforms, representation in parole hearings, and co-counsel to the class of parole-eligible inmates raising constitutional claims in Burnette v. Fahey, 687 F.3d 171 (4th Cir. 2012). Our Commission's 2015 report specifically recommended (at pp. 37-39) similar amendments "to increase the Parole Board's expertise, independence, and diversity." We included references to the work of the American Law Institute and others to support this reform. My experience has also confirmed the need to have strong protections against removal of Parole Board members by the Governor, in order to ensure that they make these difficult decisions based on an independent evaluation of the factors relevant to parole (including serious consideration of how the inmate may have demonstrated the capacity for change after many years of incarceration). In my experience, the current obstacles to the ability of Board members to do this because of the ability of the Governor to fire them have been bipartisan in nature. Finally, my experience demonstrates the need for the reforms in this bill to ensure "a meaningful opportunity for release," to require the Board to articulate contemporaneous reasons for denying parole and steps necessary for rehabilitation, and to put a stop to the rubber stamping of parole denials year after year based on nothing other than the "serious nature and circumstances of the crime" -- which was generally committed now 35 years ago or more (i.e., before the abolition of parole for offenses committed after 1994). In the Burnette case, we documented how these offenders were sentenced during a period of time in which (as later-Justice Scalia once noted) sentencing judges had imposed very long sentences with the expectation that many would later receive parole. Yet the parole grant rate declined from 42% in 1989 to from 2.1% to 3.7% between 2002 and 2008. The tragic effect of this de facto elimination of any meaningful opportunity for parole has been continued incarceration of many offenders for longer than they would have served for the same offense under the ostensibly "tough on crime" sentencing guidelines applicable under the no-parole law after 1995. In our report for the Governor's Parole Review Commission (at pp. 48-50), we described this last problem in greater detail.

This bill seems unnecessarily risky. Would this bill inadvertently result in inmates serving life sentences for murder being released even though there is no consensus on the parole board that they are rehabilitated? Va. Code § 53.1-134.1 says "four or more" members of the parole board need to vote to grant parole in order to parole an inmate. That makes sense today, because there are 5 parole board members. But this bill would expand the board to 10 parole board members. So only 4 members of the board would have to think that an inmate is rehabilitated, to release an inmate, even if other parole board members reasonably believe the inmate is a threat to the public. Va. Code § 53.1-134.1 should be amended to say "eight or more" rather than "four or more" members of the parole board need to vote to release an inmate serving a life sentence. This bill may also unduly restrict the parole board's ability to consider relevant factors, by saying that it can't deny parole based on "the nature of the offense" -- even though there are some cases, like a pattern of behavior (serial killers, serial rapists), where the nature of the offense may show a continuing danger to the public. The bill also says the board can't deny parole based on factors outside the inmate's "demonstrated ability to change." But what if the inmate is a threat for reasons he can't change, or there is no way to demonstrate he is able to change, even if he possibly could change with enough effort or willingness to undergo treatment? Unfortunately, such a dangerous inmate may still need to be kept incarcerated until the end of his sentence, to keep him from harming innocent people. That language about "the nature of the offense" and "demonstrated ability to change" needs to be revised or qualified to protect against threats to innocent people.