Two bills designed to expand transparency on the Virginia Parole Board will not receive a floor vote in the House after a committee declined Tuesday to advance the bills and sent them to be studied further.
Republicans made parole board reform a top priority in the ongoing special legislative session after the Office of the Inspector General accused the board of blocking information so it more easily could release prisoners, including convicted murderers.
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Both bills were introduced by Republicans and passed the Senate with bipartisan support earlier this month before the Democrat-led House Committee for Courts of Justice voted Tuesday to table both bills.
“The two Senate Bills defeated by Democrats today would have added much-needed transparency to the Parole Board,” House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said in a statement. “Yet House Democrats voted to kill this bipartisan legislation that would have ensured that those who have suffered at the hands of violent criminals would not remain in the dark when the Parole Board releases them early.”
Senate Bill 5012, which was sponsored by Sen. David Suetterlein, R-Roanoke, would have made the individual votes by the parole board members about whether someone receives parole subject to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
The bill was sent to the FOIA Council for further study, effectively killing its prospects of passing during the special session. A similar bill introduced in the House, House Bill 5092, received the same fate in the Public Safety Committee nearly a month ago.
Del. Marcus Simon, D-Falls Church, said it’s worthwhile to give the Senate version the same attention given to the House version. He said this does not mean the House won’t address Suetterlein’s concerns and it may revisit the bill.
Speaking to his bill during the committee hearing, Suetterlein disagreed with the effort to block the bill from advancing through the House committees.
“I’m not really sure what the FOIA Council has to look at,” Suetterlein said. “It’s a policy decision of, ‘Does the General Assembly believe that the public should know who’s voting on the parole issues in the same way the public gets to know who the commonwealth’s attorney who prosecuted the case was, who the judge that oversaw the trial and [who] the appellate judge [was]?’ That’s what this is about.”
Senate Bill 5050, sponsored by Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, would have expanded transparency by requiring the parole board to include more information upon release of a prisoner, including the length of time the person was in prison, the offense committed and the jurisdiction in which the offense was committed. It would not make individual parole board member votes public.
The bill also would require the Department of Corrections to not release a prisoner until 21 business days after the commonwealth’s attorney has been notified. Current law does not clearly put that burden on the department.
Simon said the bill includes some good ideas, but it should be incorporated into a more comprehensive bill lawmakers are working on. He said the bill should be sent to the Virginia State Crime Commission to be a part of the larger study.
“Once again House Democrats have demonstrated that their top priority in this special session is making life easier for criminals,” Gilbert said. “If murderers, rapists, and child molesters are to be released from prison, victims of their crimes and members of the public should at least know when it’s happening, and which members of the Parole Board voted for that release.”
