NJ panel says more terminally ill inmates should be eligible for release

A state panel wants New Jersey to make more inmates eligible under the compassionate release law, saying its requirement of a terminal six-month prognosis often saw applicants dead before they won freedom.

The Criminal Sentencing and Disposition Commission in a recent letter to Gov. Mikie Sherrill and legislative leaders recommended that those with a prognosis of 18 months to live be allowed to seek early release from incarceration, arguing many with six months to live did not survive procedural hurdles in existing law.

“I don’t think that’s the result that anyone wanted,” said Christopher Porrino, a former New Jersey attorney general and the commission’s chair. “We’re just proposing a tweak to try and bring the goal in line with reality and the practice.”

New Jersy’s compassionate release law, enacted in 2019 following a recommendation from the commission, allows inmates with a terminal diagnosis to petition the Superior Court for early release.

Once a prisoner has that diagnosis and a Department of Corrections-issued certificate of eligibility, which is usually available within a day, the victim, their family, and prosecutors are given a chance to respond.

A judge decides whether the person is released, but objections from victims or prosecutors prompt a hearing.

Though the commission said those procedures are sensible, it warned that they can eat into applicants’ remaining time — in many cases, all of it.

Over the last six years, the Department of Corrections issued 46 certificates of eligibility for compassionate release, but 23 of those applicants died before their cases were complete, the commission said.

And that pattern in persisted in 2025, when six of the 14 the department said were eligible for compassionate release died before their cases wended their way through court.

“Like any piece of legislation that’s written in an office, in a conference room, or on a computer, it hasn’t been tested in real life, and that’s what happened here. Now we’ve seen what the numbers look like,” Porrino said.

Allowing applications from prisoners with no more than 18 months to live would better enable humane releases, the commission said, and existing oversight processes around compassionate release would ensure public safety even under expanded eligibility.

Seven states allow compassionate release for inmates with a prognosis of 12 or fewer months to live, four allow it for prognoses of 18 months or less, and two set their limit at 24 months to live. Only Kansas’s one-month limit is stricter than New Jersey’s, the commission said.

“The Commission’s recommendation is a reasonable adjustment to the Compassionate Release Act, and one that gives the process the time it needs to work as intended,” said Attorney General Jen Davenport, whose approval is needed for the commission to issue recommendations.