The opposition to the current Parole Board’s Power to Release or keep an offender in or out of Prison is Alive and well all over America. Criminal Justice Advocates is in need of taking a closer look at what is really going on in the Ohio Prison and Parole System because, as so many panels, Groups and Think Tanks, meet to look into alternatives to rehabilitate a broken two tier System, IE; OLD LAW. vs. NEW LAW Disparities, there is a forgotten group of Offenders that are not only LEFT OUT of the conversation but they are literally Stuck in a state of PURGATORY because they do not fit into the guidelines of pre or post Senate Bill 2 (1996).
Prior to 1996 Lifers within the ODRC was granted a Review or Full Parole Hearing after serving 9 years 6 months. Some beneficiaries who were first time offenders were even granted Parole, ( liberty )” some others has twice benefitted from this provision. Still many who are on the top of the list in these talks about reform particularly OLD LAW and how they are being treated unjustly as the Parole Board keeps Flop pin them over tricky Guidelines set up outside the original plan to Reduce over Population and over punishment. Then there is NEW LAW Offenders who are doing time with a Court Established Out at…. Now I present to you a group of Lifers that are sentenced between 1984 and the establishment of Senate Bill 2 in 1996, who has to do a straight 30 or 40 years before even a review by the Parole is Granted. There is no halftime or special hearing in between, this Group is just stuck in between a War on OLD LAW, NEW LAW injustices. Being in PURGATORY puts us Lifers on a Clandestine Death Row, without the automatic Appeal or Execution Date. We are Judicially Forgotten about in the struggle for JUSTICE and not one Paragraph has been written about the incarcerated Prisoners in PURGATORY for 30 plus years and will have never seen the Parole Board perhaps they won’t see us for another Decade, Only to be Flopped, because rule of thumb says…” No one gets out on their first hearing ” Furthermore how can these PURGATORY Residents be the WORSE of the WORSE most of us are, First time Offenders with decent inmate Summeries? Many of us were given original Indictments with Death Penalty Specifications. By us not being Mitigated for Death Row by the Courts, we came to Prison and WS placed in PURGATORY to assure that we would die in these Prison Bonds in Limbo. Juveniles doing life Sentences are also stuck in the demilitarized zone because s they turn 18 years old, they are given over to the Adult Prisons and placed in suspended Animation only to spend a straight 30 or 40 years without a hearing at any interval during their stay in PURGATORY.
Where is prison reform for us in pergatory? Old Law Lifers has an entire Nation Fighting for them against the New SB2 Guidelines, mainly because of cases like the Ohio Sniper who is doing 22 flat years, with an out date; Another Ohio Inmate who stabbed two people to death, one was a child yet, in 18years, under Senate bill #2 he will be free, Despite being a previously Released Unregisterd Sex Offender. There are descretionary cases like these saturated Throughout the Ohio Dept. Of Corrections. Doing time under SB2. When Justice Comes to Rectify this Quagmire, which is the Ohio Parole Board, I feel somehow that the Group inside this Institution PURGATORY will be left behind to Die because Everyone fighting, forgot to include us in the dialogue.
PLEASE CONSIDER THE NEEDED CONCLUSIONS TO INCLUDE US ALL
EVEN THE ONES IN PURGATORY.
Anthony D. Simmons
DOC #194507
Lifer
