Legislative Commission Seeks Change To Expand Eligibility For Compassionate Release From Prison

Colleen O’Dea, Senior Writer and Projects Editor (NJ Spotlight)

More than 5 ½ years ago, New Jersey replaced a medical parole law that had been ineffective in getting seriously ill people out of prison.

But the state’s new compassionate release law has proven little better at facilitating the release of the terminally ill and permanently incapacitated. Since early 2021, more than half of those deemed eligible for release have died before their cases could even be heard.

Now the New Jersey Sentencing and Disposition Commission, which in its first report in 2019 recommended lawmakers enact the compassionate release law, has asked Gov. Mikie Sherrill and the Legislature to give more inmates a chance at being able to die at home.

The recommendation is simple and straightforward: Change the law’s definition of a terminal condition that makes one eligible for consideration of release from having six months or less to having eighteen months or less to live.

The commission sent its unanimous recommendation of the change to the governor and legislative leaders on Aug. 7. Commission Chairman Christopher Porrino, said he is disappointed that, so far, no lawmaker has introduced legislation embodying the suggested change.

Few prisoners benefit from NJ’s compassionate release law“I don’t really fully understand why this isn’t easy,” said Porrino, who served as chief counsel to the governor and attorney general during the Christie administration. He noted that the law does not allow for the automatic release of someone who is gravely ill, but just starts the process. A judge makes the final determination and any victim of the crime for which the person was sentenced and the prosecutor’s office that handled the case can object, forcing a court hearing.

“It’s just logical that you would allow a court or a judge to look at the circumstances and actually consider those concerns, like is the person someone who we have to be worried about reoffending in the last 18 months of his life,” Porrino said.

A spokesperson for the Assembly Democratic office said the commission’s recommendation is currently under review.

In the August letter to Sherrill and legislative leaders, Porrino said that of the states that allow for an inmate’s release due to a terminal illness, New Jersey and Kansas have the most restrictive timeframe of six months to live. Seven states use a prognosis of 12 months or less, four use 18 months or less and two have a standard of two years or less to live.

“Some other states have fewer procedural protections, so this would bring us not even to the vanguard,” said John Butler, political advocacy director with ACLU of New Jersey. “This is fundamentally a technical change … It’s a totally reasonable change.”

The national nonprofit organization FAMM, which advocates for justice system reforms, gave the state’s compassionate release program a C+ in a 2022 national report card, calling the six-month standard “extremely stingy.” It also criticized New Jersey’s process — requiring two medical examinations before the Department of Corrections will issue a certificate of eligibility, followed by a court process — as “time-consuming” and imperiling a person’s “chance for release before death.”

Compassionate release at judge’s discretion, NJ’s top court rulesSince the law took effect, the state Department of Corrections received 241 requests for compassionate release eligibility. Most did not meet the clinical eligibility requirements. Of the 46 approved requests, half of them died before their court date, the sentencing commission reported. In 2025, the corrections department deemed 14 people eligible and six died before a judge could rule. Porrino cited two cases in which people died within two weeks of the finding that they had six months or less to live.

“When people who have been found eligible are dying before a court can even consider their applications, the statute isn’t accomplishing what it was designed to do,” said Alison Perrone, a deputy public defender who supports the change. “Expanding the window to eighteen months would be a significant step to address this problem.”

In total, 11 people have been released under the law, according to Office of Legislative Services budget documents.

In addition to showing compassion by allowing an incarcerated person to die near loved ones, the law was touted as a way to save the state money. Intensive care for those who are critically ill is costly.

The cumulative savings from those who were released was $96,026 through early 2026, budget documents show. Meanwhile, DOC spent $6.4 million in costs for incarcerated persons cared for in long-term acute care hospitals for patients with serious, complex medical conditions who require intensive, specialized care and were deemed ineligible or denied compassionate release.

Porrino said it has also been disappointing that lawmakers still have not passed three recommendations from its 2024 report. Those would eliminate mandatory fines and fees on those unable to pay them, end mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent drug crimes and enact a rehabilitative release program that would allow well-behaved, older prisoners who have served long periods of incarceration to seek a sentence reduction.

Lawmakers introduced bills seeking to implement two of the recommendations but they did not pass in the last legislative session and have not moved so far this year.

Should elderly prisoners get early release?“All of these, including the Compassionate Release Act amendment, just give judges discretion,” Porrino said. “It’s not automatic. The Legislature confirms these judges, so what we’re asking is that these confirmed judges have an opportunity to consider alternatives and, unfortunately, they haven’t become law.”

Lawmakers passed and then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed in 2009 legislation creating the sentencing commission, which includes judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, corrections officials and public members, to advise them on changes needed to make the justice system fairer and reduce racial and ethnic disparities. It didn’t begin its work until after former Gov. Phil Murphy and a full slate of members were appointed. Porrino is its second chair, succeeding former Supreme Court Chief Justice Deborah Poritz in early 2024. His leadership has continued the tradition that only those recommendations unanimously endorsed by the commission are recommended to the Legislature.

Porrino said he initially thought it would be easy to get the commission’s “common sense reforms” enacted.

“It hasn’t been easy,” he said, “but we’re going to keep making proposals when we think there are places for improvement and the Legislature will eventually take them up, I suspect. At least I hope they do.”

This story is made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.