Victims of rapists and murderers beware of this change in the law for your attacker.
Victims of violent crimes in California are pleading with the state to keep their attackers, like rapist Thomas Martinez and killer George Bouras, in prison following a change in the law that allows them to leave prison early for being “elderly” at the age of 50.
Inmates were previously eligible for elder parole after serving at least 25 years of their sentence and reaching the age of 50.
But in 2021, that all changed in an attempt to ease prison overcrowding, allowing for inmates to be released after serving at least 20 years of their sentence and reaching the age of 50.
It does not apply to inmates who are sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole, per the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
One such victim, Jennifer Carvalho, sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom pleading with him to review the case of her rapist Martinez to keep him behind bars being he’s age 54 now, KCRA reported.
“Please, I beg you to review this case. He is a repeat violent offender and a rapist. Lives are at stake,” the letter read.
Martinez was sentenced to 56 years to life for raping Carvalho and another woman.
“As he had the knife to my neck, I remember thinking, ‘If I scream, he’s going to kill me, and my son’s going to wake up in the morning and find his mom dead,’” Carvalho said.
In 2004, Martinez was convicted and Carvalho shared that she initially felt safe, knowing he was “going to go away for life.”
Now more than two decades later, she said she fears for her safety, because Martinez qualifies for elder parole.
“I said, ‘No, no, no, no, he got a 56 to life sentence. He wasn’t supposed to be eligible for parole until the year 2051. What do you mean he’s up for parole?’” Carvalho said.
The state heard her plea and postponed Martinez’s January release and is reconsidering his parole eligibility.
Another woman, Karen Huestis, whose mom, Nancy Nelson, was killed by George Bouras in 1981, has written to the parole board numerous times, over the change in the law.
“What can I possibly say today to make complete strangers understand the magnitude of our loss?” Huestis wrote in her letters.
In 1991, Bouras was sentenced to 25 years to life for killing his girlfriend, Nancy, 43, with a hammer.
Karen said she remembered the assurance from the DA at the time, “‘You don’t have to worry now, he’s going to be put away for a long time and you can go and live in peace.’”
Now she fears for her life because her mother’s killer has been released and granted parole.
“I have a sentence of life because I have to watch my back all the time. And it is not the freedom that I would like to live my life, but it is what it is,” Huestis said.
Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho called the so-called elder parole a “ticking time bomb.”
“It is an absolute failure of our criminal justice system because it endangers people,” Ho said.
“We made a promise to the victims. The judge made a promise,” he added. “Society made a promise. The jurors did their job. And now with this law, it just rips open everything away, years later.”
California Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen said the law is “disgusting” to her and it needs to change.
“I think now is the time in which we need to bring this back and say, is 50 old enough? That 50 is still young,” Nguyen said.
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