Victims want early release law repealed
SALEM, Ore. - Victims of crimes begged state lawmakers Tuesday in emotional testimony to repeal a controversial law that allows some prisoners to get out of prison early.
The law allows convicted criminals, some of whom are killers and rapists, to request reduced sentences. Many lawmakers said the law was enacted to help save money.
Crime victims, however, told legislators that the early release law has brought them back to the horrors and the memories they have tried to escape.
Heather Struznik described how she survived an attack by a serial, sadistic rapist in 2007 who beat her for 45 minutes and told her he was going to kill her. But she said she had to relive the event when she received a letter in the mail from the state that told her that her attacker, James Worley, was eligible for “early release” under Oregon’s new “earned time” law.
“(I) opened it and just dropped to my knees,” she said. “I felt like it did the day I had to go to trial for this.”
Struznik told lawmakers that Worley is a serial rapist - ready to murder - and that he’d already been let out too many times before.
“There’s got to be another way than allowing these people who re-offend and re-offend and re-offend another chance,” she said. “When do we get a chance? As survivors, when do we get a chance? What do we earn?”
A stepfather of a hit-and-run victim also pleaded before lawmakers to repeal the law.
Three and a half years ago Alan Tremain’s stepdaughter, Kimberly McDaniel, was struck by a car while out jogging. She was left to die on the roadside by the illegal immigrant who hit her.
The law allowed McDaniel’s killer to ask a court for an early release. He was denied, but because he was allowed to ask for early release the family said it caused them additional emotional trauma.
“I cannot believe they want us to relive our worst nightmare,” Tremain said.
Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, who helped craft the early release law acknowledged there were some unintended consequences to the new law.
“What we’ve learned is some of the crimes we thought were going to be excluded weren’t excluded,” he said.
However, he didn’t say how lawmakers plan to fix the law, only that they are looking into making changes.
Critics disputed whether the law is saving the $6 million it is supposed to every two years. They said the law is costing the state more by running criminals back through the court system.
Prozanski said that the money is being saved based on what the Department of Corrections said in its testimony.
But Lawmakers are still waiting to hear how much courts and prosecutors are spending to hold all the early-release hearings.