“When the parolee goes before the Parole Board, they’re essentially procedurally naked,” says Joe Russo. “They don’t have counsel. And it really is an adversarial proceeding.”
Russo, an assistant public defender, wrote the latest revised Parole Project Report on the system. It shows that, despite an expectation of release in parole hearings, release was granted in only about 43% of cases in 2018, 40% in 2019 and 53% in 2020.
Russo calls the process a “stacked deck.” For example: The board does not share confidential reports with defendants.
According to the report, Parole Board members don’t take age into account, but should because older parolees rarely reoffend. Instead, the board weighs intangibles like a defendant’s remorse, and including complaints that they haven’t apologized to victims. The problem is, they can’t, says Carmelo Ortiz, co-founder of the Returning Citizens Support Group.
“It’s against the rules and regulations for you to write the victims and express your remorse,” Ortiz said. “But yet they use this as an excuse to deny guys parole.”
Chino Ortiz, who served 30 years, ticked off reasons some defendants got denied parole: no home, address, no ID card. And if the Parole Board thinks applicants might commit more crimes on release, it can add extra years — or “hits” — to an inmate’s sentence. “And that’s too much power, when you’re giving people not one hit, not two, but sometimes three, four and five hits. The Legislature needs to address this injustice — this inequity that’s been going on too long.”
Public defender Jennifer Sellitti said the report shows the system is “broken and it needs to be reimagined.” She said “there needs to be some fundamental change to our current parole system — things like having legal counsel when you’re going up for a parole decision, things like really investing in reentry.”
Sellitti’s office sent a copy of the report to the Parole Board, which told NJ Spotlight News, “The State Parole Board is unable to offer comment as the revised report is currently under review by the Board.”
The public defender will now work on drafting legislation designed to enact some of the reforms recommended in the report.
