Earlier this year we editorialized on an Appellate Division decision, State v. William Thomas, which reversed a decision of the New Jersey State Parole Board and granted defendant Thomas an adversarial hearing in the trial court where he could be represented by counsel, present witnesses and cross-examine the state’s witnesses, none of which procedures are available at parole board proceedings. 228 N.J.L.J. 296 (Feb. 7, 2022). Thomas had been incarcerated for 40 years at the time of his hearing, had a perfect prison record, had participated in multiple therapies and had received a psychological evaluation finding him a low risk for recidivism but was denied parole based on the facts of the offense (committed when Thomas was a juvenile) and a supposed lack of sufficient insight into his criminal behavior. Based on what we saw as the egregious miscarriage of justice by the Parole Board, we called its decisions in that case “akin to a kangaroo court” and advocated significant revision of the parole process so that it affords fundamental due process rights to defendants seeking parole or even abolishing parole altogether, as the federal system has done.

Now another case has been decided, this time by the New Jersey Supreme Court, Acoli v. New Jersey State Parole Board, evidencing the same problems. In a 3-2 decision (Chief Justice Rabner did not participate) written by Justice Albin, the court ordered the release of 85-year-old Acoli who had by then served 49 years in prison although he was eligible for parole after 20 years, after the Parole Board again denied his release.

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