- Associated Press - Wednesday, May 31, 2017

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Gov. John Bel Edwards’ goal of significantly reducing Louisiana’s incarceration rate is closer to reality after some of the package’s more controversial proposals passed a tough test Wednesday.

The House criminal justice committee approved three Senate-backed bills to expand probation and parole opportunities and shrink sentences for some offenders, mainly those jailed for non-violent crimes.

The proposals head to the House floor for debate, bolstered after Edwards reached a compromise with district attorneys two weeks ago on the bills, which were the result of a government task force’s study.

If the measures all pass, Edwards expects Louisiana’s prison population to fall by 10 percent over the next decade. Under a bill advanced unanimously by the House on Tuesday, 70 percent of the estimated $262 million in savings over that time would then be reinvested in programs focused on reducing recidivism.

“This is probably the most significant thing that I will ever do in this building - and that you will ever do in this building,” Sen. Danny Martiny, a Kenner Republican, told the committee as he introduced the bills.

A day after leading the opposition on the House floor to other bills in the package, committee chairman Rep. Sherman Mack sought to derail a measure that would allow expand parole eligibility for some first-time violent offenders, among others.

Mack, an Albany Republican, argued Martiny’s proposal should be limited to non-violent offenses.

“The broad strokes of this bill (according to the task force) has been ’We’re not going to do anything to violent crimes and sex crimes,’” Mack said. “There are things in this bill that do exactly that. And I know you’ll say the impact is not that much, but if the impact is not that much, then why are we doing it?”

Rep. Joe Marino argued that district attorneys and sheriffs were satisfied with all portions of the bill. The proposed parole restrictions would still be tougher than they were prior to changes instituted in the 1990s as part of the country’s “war on crime,” Marino said.

Despite Mack’s opposition, Martiny’s proposal advanced with a 10-6 vote.

Prior to that vote, Mack sought to remove a portion of Martiny’s bill that would restore parole eligibility for about 160 second-degree murderers who were sentenced in the 1970s and had been declared eligible for parole back then. State law currently dictates that a second-degree murder conviction carries a sentence of life without parole.

Mack’s amendment failed in a 7-8 vote.

Martiny and Marino said stakeholders had reached a delicate compromise on these measures and they did not want to make any sudden changes that could spoil the bills’ chances before the session ends June 8.

The two other related bills passed without objection. Those measures decrease drug sentences, remove less serious crimes from the violent crimes list and lower minimum sentences for habitual offenders.

Edwards applauded the progress after the hearing.

“It’s time to start getting a better return on our investment when it comes to public safety because we have been hemorrhaging money on a system with a very high failure rate for too long,” the Democratic governor said in a statement. “When high failure means more victims and few re-entry opportunities, it is on us to do better by the people who we were elected to serve. Today’s good news means we are on the way to doing just that.”

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Senate Bills 139, 220, 221: www.legis.la.gov

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