The bill retroactively applies the current 40-year sentence for juveniles sentenced as adults. For a person sentenced as an adult who was charged by a direct filing or a juvenile transfer proceeding to a sentence in excess of 40 years, the person will be eligible for parole after 40 years.

All juveniles sentenced as adults serving a sentence to incarceration in the department of corrections (DOC) shall be eligible for parole after serving no more than 40 years of their sentence unless otherwise eligible before then. The bill provides the opportunity for a juvenile who was sentenced to the DOC to be placed in a community placement by the executive director of the DOC (executive director) after the juvenile completes a specified portion of his or her sentence. The executive director must consider the juvenile for community placement at least once no later than 10 years before the juvenile's parole eligibility date. The executive director must consider specified criteria in determining whether to place the individual in a community placement. If the offender meets the criteria for placement and is not housed in a minimum security facility, the executive director must place the offender in a minimum security facility for at least 6 months, but no more than 24 months, to observe how the offender adjusts to a less secure environment. If the offender meets the criteria for placement, the offender must undergo a clinical assessment to identify the needs of the offender in order to function in a community placement. If, after reviewing the criteria and the clinical assessment, the executive director determines that the offender still meets the criteria for community placement and determines there is a suitable placement for the offender, the executive director shall refer the offender to community placement, unless the executive director determines that doing so would create a public safety risk. Prior to placement, the department will develop a continuity of care and long-term supervision plan for the offender. If an offender is not referred to community placement, he or she may apply again in a year if he or she has addressed the reasons for the denial of placement.

Read a fact sheet here.

Year

2011

Current status

  • 03/18/2011 Introduced In House - Assigned to Judiciary

Sponsors

Reps Levy & Nikkel, Sen Newell

Bill number

HB 11-1287