Maryland general assembly override Hogans veto on bill removing governor from parole decision

Publish date: 2024-08-08

Maryland will no longer allow the sitting governor to overturn parole decisions for inmates serving life sentences, removing itself from a list of three states that still give governors that authority.

The Maryland General Assembly voted this week to revoke the governor’s ability to reject parole board recommendations, ending a consequential policy that has shaped the prospects of early release for hundreds of inmates in the state, the vast majority of them Black.

It comes after years of debate between those who favor harsher punishment for violent criminals and advocates for inmates serving life terms who say the parole process has been unfairly politicized since the state’s tough-on-crime agenda in the 1990s.

Amid the nationwide reckoning with criminal justice, post-conviction reform has emerged as one of the thorniest issues to resolve, particularly when it concerns those serving life sentences. In Maryland, lawmakers have attempted to make headway, passing bills that removed the governor’s ability to reject parole board recommendations and abolished life without parole for those who committed crimes as juveniles. Both bills were vetoed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R).

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After an at-times-emotional debate about escalating crime, victims’ rights, redemption and fairness, the Senate voted 31 to 16 on Monday and the House 92 to 46 late Tuesday to override Hogan’s veto of the parole bill.

Walter Lomax, who served 39 years of a life sentence before being released by a judge in 2006 and becoming the lead voice in the fight for parole reform in Maryland, watched from the State House as the Senate voted.

“I’m just totally elated,” he said. “There are still so many people on the inside that’s still waiting for this legislation, so many of their family members and friends, because they have been getting the recommendations and haven’t been able to get out. So I’m totally elated. I really am.”

The law will take effect in early January and tighten some aspects of the parole process even as it removes the governor’s direct involvement. Those with life sentences would have to serve 20 years before being eligible for parole, up from 15 years. And they would still have to earn recommendations for release from at least six of the 10-member, governor-appointed Parole Commission.

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“Listening to [the Republicans], I guess I just realized that that’s the mind-set that they have and they’re not going to change that,” said Lomax, who has spent the past several years traveling to Annapolis to meet with lawmakers about the bill.

Carl Marine, 63, who said he served 37 years for first-degree murder, sat near Lomax as the Senate voted. Marine was released six years ago under a judge’s decision.

“I believe if a man changes he should be given a second chance. I don’t believe the governor should have an opportunity to interfere with that, especially if [the inmate] has served most of his time,” said Marine, who works with a reentry program. He said there is “no doubt in [his] mind” that he would still be incarcerated if a judge had not acted.

The life sentence he got as a teen came with a chance at parole. But is it a real chance?

Maryland governors used to routinely parole people serving life terms, but this changed in 1995 when, in the face of a nationwide crime wave, then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening declared that “life means life.” For two decades, governors rejected hundreds of parole recommendations for lifers with little to no explanation, drawing criticism from criminal justice advocates who said the state was violating the rights of inmates who had accepted life sentences — some while they were younger than 18 — with the understanding that good behavior might earn them a meaningful chance for early release.

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In a state where 77 percent of those serving life were Black — the highest percentage in the country — compared to 30 percent of the general population, the implications of this policy were being borne predominantly by Black families, advocates said.

Sen. Delores G. Kelley (D-Baltimore County), who has sponsored the bill for several years, said release decisions should rest in the hands of those with the expertise to make the determination.

She said the members of the Parole Commission, who are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, “are following social science. They are objective in ways the governors are not.”

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“This bill is a minor step in the criminal justice reforms that are needed and long overdue in Maryland to fix these situations and right these wrongs,” said Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City), who led the debate on Monday, after raising the racial disparity.

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Several Republican lawmakers rejected the argument that the bill is the answer to a problem of over-incarceration.

“Could we just stop with the excessive incarceration line here?” Sen. Robert G. Cassilly (R-Harford) asked. “This is someone who murdered someone who they intended to murder.”

Cassilly said the General Assembly was sending the wrong message at a time when local leaders, reeling from violent crime, are pleading for help.

“How many times have we watched the evening news in this state and watched grieving county executives, grieving mayors, grieving legislators say ‘enough is enough,’ he said. “They stand beside the dead 5-year-old. The stand beside the woman stabbed to death in the back of the church.”

During the House debate, Minority Leader Jason C. Buckel (R-Allegany) described the grisly details of killings that were committed by inmates who were recommended for release but were rejected by Hogan.

“There are some people, some situations, that cannot be fixed,” he said, adding that the role of lawmakers is to “save the people who can be saved and protect those from those who can’t.”

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