NEWSBREAK: A spokeswoman for Gov. Corzine said he hasn't committed yet to signing into law a trio of last-minute bills that allow killers to be paroled sooner. Rosemarie D'Alessandro, whose grade-school daughter was killed by a man who could benefit from the so-called Inmates' Bill of Rights, said the governor's designee told her this morning that Corzine has a huge stack of measures awaiting his signature before he leaves office Tuesday.
D'Alessandro said she left open the possibility that Corzine could simply leave the parole measures to Gov.-Elect Christopher Christie, who is expected to oppose the moves because of their cost.
"People have been getting in touch with me all day as a result of your article," she told CLIFFVIEW PILOT late Wednesday afternoon. "They're going to write letters and make phone calls to the governor opposing these bills."
Joan, Rosemarie D'Alessandro, McGowan
The trio of measures, introduced in November, quietly passed both houses on Monday amid a flurry of activity for the lame-duck Legislature.
"They hadn't even gone through serious committee hearings the last time I checked, and, all of a sudden, they were rushed through," said Marilyn Zdobinski, a former Assistant Passaic County prosecutor who once put killers behind bars and now fights as a private citizen to keep them there.
"Were any victim's groups consulted? Were any law enforcement groups consulted?" Zdobinski told CLIFFVIEW PILOT on Tuesday. "All of the language of these bills create total power for the prisoners. [And] that's the trouble: No one is on the side of the victim."
The driving force behind the "Inmates' Bill of Rights": Assembly Majority Leader Bonnie Watson Coleman, who had previously led efforts to let felons vote and to make it illegal for businesses to reject employment to applicants convicted of felonies.
The majority leader said the bills, which admittedly would require an undetermined amount of additional state spending, are aimed at giving all inmates a better chance at getting proper education and training, thus helping them find jobs -- and, as a result, she says, reduce recidivism.
Coleman knows first-hand about such matters: Eight years ago, two of her sons were sent to prison after pleading guilty to first-degree armed robbery in the heist of a Kids ''R'' Us clothing store just a few miles from the Statehouse. William Carter-Watson and Jared C. Coleman both were released in January 2008 after serving six years each of maximum seven-year sentences, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections.
Two-thirds of New Jersey inmates end up back in prison within three years of release, studies show. That's because they can't find jobs, get food stamps, or move into public housing. A full third are non-violent drug offenders -- the highest population of any state. Once released, they're not sent to treatment programs. Chances are they're likely to reoffend.
Coleman's argument is that by giving these non-violent convicts a leg up, the state could prevent them from returning to prison. What she can't explain is why violent rapists, murderers and others needed to be quietly included in the bills.
The provisions that frighten D'Alessandro, Zdobinski and new Assemblyman Bob Schroeder most are tacked near the bottom of the approved measures, which include a host of other incentives weighted toward convicts.
For example, paragraph 8 of the 10-paragraph Assembly bill A-4202 says: "The provisions of the bill that concern parole would cap, at a maximum of three years, the length of time that the parole board could require an inmate denied release to serve before having another hearing." That applies to both violent and non-violent offenders.
Until now, the Parole Board decided how long an inmate had to go between hearings, based on severity of the crime and "the characteristics of the offender," as the bill notes.
Corzine has until next Tuesday to sign the measures into law -- unless D'Alessandro and others can convince him otherwise.
"It's all been kind of secretive. And who's going to be paying for all this? It's going to be us, the taxpayers," she told CLIFFVIEW PILOT. "Plus, it's not going to be safe. There are going to people coming out who should be in prison."
"This just makes it easier for a criminal to be paroled," added her son, Michael. "It becomes more difficult to find reason to keep them in."
Just last month, the man who raped and killed D'Alessandro's daughter, Joan, 36 years ago dropped a parole appeal that he wait at least 18 years before applying again.
At the time, D'Alessandro said she could finally exhale, knowing that Joseph McGowan, 63, would likely die in prison. That may now become moot, she said. None of the bills "grandfathers" any current inmates.
"If you take it logically, it looks like it's going to apply to us," D'Alessandro told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
McGowan, a former high school science teacher, was convicted of raping and murdering Joan D'Alessandro on April 19th, 1973 (Holy Thursday), before dumping her body in Harriman State Park, where it was found on Easter. McGowan lived three houses down in their Hillsdale neighborhood, and the youngster had come to his door looking to sell her last two boxes of Girl Scout cookies.
Her murder prompted the passage of Joan's Law, signed by Gov. Christie Whitman in 1997 and by President Clinton in 1998. It law mandates life in prison for the killing of children under 14 during a sex crime.
Because the law was adopted after McGowan's sentencing, it doesn't apply to him. So D'Alessandro has had to relive the horror over and again with each new bid he made for parole -- and, worse, with each appeal that followed the board's denials.
The new measures, if signed into law, also apply to Christopher Righetti, of River Vale, who was convicted in 1976 of murdering Kim Montelaro, then 20, of New Milford, after he kidnapped her from the Paramus Park Mall. Righetti was denied parole again last fall but could be out sooner than Kim's family was promised. (See: New lawmaker calls NJ Legislature's 11th-hour parole break an "outrage")
For more, go to:
Joan D'Alessandro's mom finally exhales
Parole denied to honor student's killer
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