Brewer Announces Bill to Crack Down on Habitual Offenders Advances
(Boston) – Senator Stephen M. Brewer (D-Barre) today announced that the Senate approved a compromise crime bill that addresses sentencing reforms, cracks down on habitual offenders and strengthens the state’s parole board. The final bill includes pieces of legislation passed by both the House and the Senate and negotiated by a six member conference committee.
The bill defines a habitual offender as anyone convicted of two crimes from a list of the heinous crimes including murder, rape and kidnapping and mandates that any habitual offender found guilty of a third offense from the list of these crimes would be ineligible for parole.
“This bill is important to ensuring that our most dangerous criminals are not allowed to re-offend,” said Brewer. “Massachusetts has continuously made public safety a priority, this bill strengthens and streamlines our procedures when dealing with criminals in this state.”
The legislation also closes a loophole that currently prevents federal sentences from counting toward habitual offender status.
The bill raises the parole eligibility threshold to a two-thirds vote of the parole board from the current majority vote for anyone serving a life sentence and allows judges to set an imprisonment term between 15-25 years before an initial parole eligibility date. Inmates with life sentences arising from separate and distinct incidents would not be eligible for parole.
The legislation also makes the following parole board improvements:
Gives the governor the ability to remove parole board members;
Diversifies members on the discretionary parole appointment panel;
Requires the parole board complete a risk/needs assessment before granting a parole permit;
Requires certification that parole board members have reviewed criminal records;
Requires tally of voting record of board decisions;
Increases notification requirements when violent felons have a parole hearing; and
Requires eight hours of annual training for parole board members.
The bill reduces mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent drug offenses under the Controlled Substances Act which will help alleviate prison overcrowding and save taxpayers money. Those serving a prison sentence under the Controlled Substances Act will now be allowed to participate in authorized vocational and educational programs.
The legislation also reduces school zone areas from 1,000 feet to 300 feet, which triggers enhanced mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug offenses, and reforms DNA collection practices, alleviating a backlog in the crime labs and DNA database and assisting law enforcement and prosecutors.
Additionally, the bill includes two Good Samaritan provisions. One allows doctors to prescribe and dispense a potentially life-saving drug normally administered for heroin and other opioid overdoses to abusers and family members for preventative purposes. The second allows a person to come forward in good faith to a medical professional or member of law enforcement on behalf of someone experiencing an overdose without fear of being prosecuted.
The bill now goes to the Governor for his signature.
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Posted: Thu, Jul 19, 2012
Updated Thu, Jul 19, 2012