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Sunday, May 25, 1997

Fred Goldman champions changes in Texas' mandatory release program

By SARAH HORNADAY / Associate Press Writer

AUSTIN (AP) - The father of murder victim Ron Goldman spoke out Saturday in favor of legislation that would retroactively take away an inmate's right to parole under the state's mandatory early release provision.

Under the provision designed to address prison overcrowding in the 1980s, prisoners are required to be released under supervision when their actual time served plus good-conduct time credit added up to their original sentence.

Lawmakers ended the mandatory release program after a prison-building boom, but that still left thousands of inmates slated for early release under the old law.

"I'm speaking, I think, on behalf of all families who are either victims already or who most assuredly will be victims when you release prisoners without any consideration of their propensity for violence, past history and you release them because of a numerical calculation," said Fred Goldman, who wore a picture of his son on his label as he spoke outside the Capitol.

"You are most assuredly guaranteeing new victims in this state."

O.J. Simpson was charged with the 1994 slayings of Ron Goldman and Simpson's ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, but was acquitted by a criminal jury. This year, Simpson was found liable for the two deaths in a civil trial.

Goldman and the activist group Justice For All spoke outside the Capitol, while inside mandatory release legislation has stalled.

The Texas Senate has approved a bill by Sen. Jerry Patterson, R-Pasadena, that would impose nonstop supervision on violent and sex offenders slated to be freed before their full sentences are up.

However, it is still sitting in a House committee with nine days left in the session.

Senators earlier this year voted to end such releases but the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case from Florida, has ruled that states can't cancel such early release credits.

"The inaction speaks loudly," Goldman said. "Their unwillingness to protect citizens is an outrage."

Ken Anderson, Williamson County district attorney, said Texas now has the toughest sentences in the nation, but some parts of the criminal justice system need to be corrected.

"There a few things that still apply to inmates in the system that we desperately need to do, and one of those is some solution to mandatory release," he said.

Other legislation targeting mandatorily released inmates includes a House bill, authored by Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, that would use high-tech surveillance of sex offenders and other violent felons who have been granted early release from Texas prisons. The Senate and the House have approved different versions of the measure and it was assigned to a conference committee last week.

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Allen's mandatory release bill is HB2918.

Patterson's mandatory release bill is SB250. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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