District Attorney James Murphy, III has yet again worked tirelessly to improve the safety of the residents of Saratoga County and across New York State by urging Governor Paterson to close a loophole in laws regarding repeat violent criminals.
Violent criminals who re-offend while they are free on parole will no longer receive breaks in their sentence after Paterson signed a bill which corrected an oversight in legislation.
Under previous legislation, violent re-offenders could get credit for time served in their previous sentence if they committed another violent crime while on parole.
District attorneys across the state, including Murphy, have been urging the governor to fix this loophole for 14 to 16 months, but with problems in the legislature and the senate stalemate, Murphy said the district attorneys were worried that this bill would get lost in the shuffle.
"In legislative history, this was a quick fix. This was a real oddity; I don't think this loophole was intentional. We brought this to Gov. Paterson's attention and he understood the problem and we convinced the Republicans to change the law, but then no one was in charge of the Senate so there was a lot of stuff going on and we are glad it wasn't lost," Murphy said.
Penal law required virtually every repeat offender to serve a new state sentence consecutively to any time remaining on a previously imposed sentence, in other words, the new sentence would begin when the old one ends. However, murderers, other A-1 felons, and second offenders of a child sexual assault felony were omitted from this presumption. Before the governor signed the bill, if an inmate is paroled after serving 10- years on a prior sentence and commits murder while on parole leading to a new 20-year sentence, he or she would have received 10 years of credit for the time served on the original murder toward the new 20-year sentence. This inmate would therefore serve 10 years before becoming eligible for parole.
"It made absolutely no sense," Murphy said. "Why should murderers and two-time child molesters who have a prior violent felony conviction get credit for time they served on their first felony and be able to apply that same time to the sentence on their second felony? It's absolutely contrary to a sensible public safety agenda."
The old statute implied that if a judge was silent in the ruling whether or not the sentences would run consecutively (one after another) or concurrently (at the same time) the sentence would run concurrently.
"I am relieved to see that the legislature and the governor acted quickly and rationally to fix this problem. Thanks to a cooperative agenda between both houses and the governor's office and the NYS District Attorney's Association, of which I am the past President, and the Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., we have closed the loophole for good. Violent offenders will serve their entire sentence first and then begin to serve their entire sentence for the second felony consecutively. We are all safer thanks to these collaborative and sensible efforts," Murphy said.
He added that there are currently no cases such as this in Saratoga County but the importance of the issue could not be ignored for the safety of all communities across New York State.
Under previous legislation, violent re-offenders could get credit for time served in their previous sentence if they committed another violent crime while on parole.
District attorneys across the state, including Murphy, have been urging the governor to fix this loophole for 14 to 16 months, but with problems in the legislature and the senate stalemate, Murphy said the district attorneys were worried that this bill would get lost in the shuffle.
"In legislative history, this was a quick fix. This was a real oddity; I don't think this loophole was intentional. We brought this to Gov. Paterson's attention and he understood the problem and we convinced the Republicans to change the law, but then no one was in charge of the Senate so there was a lot of stuff going on and we are glad it wasn't lost," Murphy said.
Penal law required virtually every repeat offender to serve a new state sentence consecutively to any time remaining on a previously imposed sentence, in other words, the new sentence would begin when the old one ends. However, murderers, other A-1 felons, and second offenders of a child sexual assault felony were omitted from this presumption. Before the governor signed the bill, if an inmate is paroled after serving 10- years on a prior sentence and commits murder while on parole leading to a new 20-year sentence, he or she would have received 10 years of credit for the time served on the original murder toward the new 20-year sentence. This inmate would therefore serve 10 years before becoming eligible for parole.
"It made absolutely no sense," Murphy said. "Why should murderers and two-time child molesters who have a prior violent felony conviction get credit for time they served on their first felony and be able to apply that same time to the sentence on their second felony? It's absolutely contrary to a sensible public safety agenda."
The old statute implied that if a judge was silent in the ruling whether or not the sentences would run consecutively (one after another) or concurrently (at the same time) the sentence would run concurrently.
"I am relieved to see that the legislature and the governor acted quickly and rationally to fix this problem. Thanks to a cooperative agenda between both houses and the governor's office and the NYS District Attorney's Association, of which I am the past President, and the Parents of Murdered Children, Inc., we have closed the loophole for good. Violent offenders will serve their entire sentence first and then begin to serve their entire sentence for the second felony consecutively. We are all safer thanks to these collaborative and sensible efforts," Murphy said.
He added that there are currently no cases such as this in Saratoga County but the importance of the issue could not be ignored for the safety of all communities across New York State.
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