PAROLE, DUE PROCESS & COMMUNITY PLACEMENTS

Whenever there is a new challenge for parole departments or parole boards, California faces it in spades. With more than 140,000 men and women on parole in recent years, each new policy means change on a grand scale.

Ginny Morrison serves as part of Masterships that help agencies navigate these changes and still meet constitutional standards. California’s parole divisions and boards have adopted evidence-based tools to predict risk and needs, for a better match when deciding about community placements or parole revocation. They have adjusted parole conditions to legal changes for sex offenders. They have managed waves of new definitions of who belongs on parole, with the grand scale shift of Realignment still underway.

All of these heap legal questions on top of practical supervision issues. What is fair notice of parole conditions and possible violations? What do you do with a jailed parolee who has a jurisdiction challenge? What is due process under these changing conditions? How should alternative placements be used? How are these different for juveniles?

As Special Master, and as a team member, Ginny has helped agencies work through these questions to provide due process expected by federal courts. Jails and probation departments are facing these questions more and more as Realignment puts more men and women in their custody and caseloads.

PROJECTS HAVE INCLUDED

Valdivia v. Brown, aligning parole revocation and alternatives to incarceration decisions with due process for 140,000 on California parole. Oversight continues as much of that population transitions to supervision by 58 county probation departments under Realignment.

LH v. Brown, requiring due process protections during parole revocation and alternatives to incarceration decisions for California juvenile parolees. The systems are in place and federal court supervision is nearing conclusion.



Ventura, California (Anthony Plascencia, 2012)

IMPACT

"Ginny is a very skilled mediator. She brought
two adversarial litigants to agreement on a large
number of issues in a very complicated case that
I was involved in. Her calm and thoughtful
demeanor sets a tone that makes agreement
possible.
"

- Anne Mania, JD