1 COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY In re: House Bill 1382

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Stenographic report of hearing held at SCI-Graterford, Graterford, Pennsylvania Friday, December 13, 1991 10:00 a.m. HON. THOMAS R. CALTAGIRONE, CHAIRMAN MEMBERS OF COMMITTEE ON JUDICIARY Hon. Jerry Birmelin Hon. Robert D. Reber Hon. James Gerlach X Also Present: Hon. Andrew Carn, Prime Sponsor of HB 1382 David Krantz, Executive Director Galina Milahov, Research Analyst Paul Dunkelberger, Republican Research Analyst Kathryn Manucci, Committee Staff Sonia Allen, District Office Susan Wright, Republican Staff Reported by: Ann-Marie P. Sweeney, Reporter

ANN-MARIE P. SWEENEY 3606 Horsham Drive Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 717-732-5316

V 2 INDEX PAGE Hon. Andrew J. Carn, Prime Sponsor, HB 1382 5. Donald T. Vaughn, Superintendent, SCI-Graterford 15 Tyrone Werts 16 Brian Wallace 25 Bruce Bainbridge 27 Kenneth Tervalon 29 Omar Ali 36 John Watts, Sr. 72 John F. Watts 72 John Watts, Jr. 73 Patricia Watts 74 Sarah Hannigan 76 Bill Hannigan 78 Agnes Hannigan 84 Alice Johnson 93 Sue Beard 96 Pauline Velasquez 101 Hugh Colihan, Assistant District Attorney, 103 Philadelphia Lois Williamson 118 Anthony Jacobs 120 Stephen Blackburn 127 Fletcher Long 136 3 CHAIRMAN CALTAGIRONE: If I could have your attention, we're going to open this House Judiciary Committee hearing at Graterford. It's concerning House Bill 1382. Prime sponsor Andy Cam is with us and will be the first testifant. I would just like to introduce myself for the record and for the public that's here. I am Chairman Tom Caltagirone, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. I come from the 127th Legislative District, Reading, Berks County. I want to thank the Superintendent and the staff and the corrections officers and the public for being so cordial and patient in waiting. We had a few delays. And this is the first in a series of hearings that we're having on this legislation. We do plan to hold one Tuesday in Western State Penn, and there's also another one that's being scheduled for Muncy. So this is the first of three public hearings that we are having concerning this legislation. And I want to say that we have striven to find the results of the work that we do in Harrisburg by touring yesterday we were just up at the Youth Detention Facility in Loysville, Perry County, and we have been to almost every prison that the State operates over this last year, and over the last two 4 years we have been in many of the county prisons and many of the youth detention facilities. I think it's extremely important for those of us that help to write the laws to see the effects and results of the laws that we write in Harrisburg, and part of that has been to bring the committee out into the field to visit the institutions, to visit some of the results of the legislation that either we've been directly involved in or we'll be taking a look at reforming in some way. For the record, I would like the members and staff that are present to introduce themselves, and if we could start at my left and just go right across, I would appreciate it. And if the members would like to make any comments as we come across, please feel free. MR. DUNKELBERGER: Paul Dunkelberger, Republican staff. MS. WRIGHT: Susan Wright, Republican staff. MS. MANUCCI: Kathryn Manucci, Democratic staff. REPRESENTATIVE BIRMELIN: Representative Birmeldn from Wayne, Pike and Susquehanna Counties. REPRESENTATIVE REBER: Representative Reber, Minority Chairman of the Subcommittee on Courts 5 of this committee from Montgomery County, immediately west of the institution. MS. ALLEN: Sonia Allen from the district staff. MS. MILAHOV: Galina Milahov from the Democratic staff. MR. KRANTZ: David Krantz, Executive Director, House Judiciary Committee. CHAIRMAN CALTAGIRONE: And with that, I'd like to start off with our first testifant, who also happens to be the prime sponsor of this legislation, Andy Cam from Philadelphia. REPRESENTATIVE CARN: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank you and the other members from the House Judiciary Committee that are here today for taking this time. I would like to also thank Commissioner Lehman and Superintendent Vaughn for the opportunity to use this facility for having this public hearing on this issue. I have for three sessions now introduced this bill or some semblance of it for the purpose of trying to bring a little more justice from our perspective into the issue of life sentencing in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I was very surprised myself after becoming a legislator to find out that in 6 Pennsylvania when someone receives a life sentence it is until they die. I wasn't aware of that myself. I always thought, before becoming a legislator, that there was some way that lifers had the opportunity to be paroled or to have an opportunity for consideration to be released. I thought that because of other State laws that I have seen enacted and being implemented. And what concerns me more than anything else about the need for reform in this regard is that I personally have seen many persons being dealt injustice in our system, and not to say that our system is perfect or should be perfect. I know it's not perfect. And that's why I've taken this kind of initiative. Many of my fellow colleagues question my reasons for taking such a position when politically they don't think that it's a popular issue. And I can agree that in our society today that prison issues are not popular issues. As a matter of fact, we live in a society that has, and even in our own legislature has increased penalties, has increased mandatory sentencing, and as a result has increased the populations in our prisons. And as a result, we as legislators are faced annually with a budget problem as a result of this. We just allocated dollars to build more prisons. What concerns me is where are we going to get the money from to even 7 operate these prisons, as I look at the budget problems that we face with every year and the struggles that we go through trying to pass these budgets. So there are many levels of concerns that I see that brings me to the need to introduce such legislation for us to consider. Not as an emotional issue, but as an issue of practicality, as an issue of justice, as an issue of fairness, as an issue of what is right. We are paying tremendous amounts of money to keep people incarcerated that can, in fact, be productive citizens, that can, in fact, produce incomes and pay taxes themselves if given the opportunity, at no threat to society. And that's really what the question in my mind becomes. Should we be paying for incarceration of persons who have proven not to be a threat to society? As I look at our State budgets, I say we really cannot afford to continue to do this. But again, emotionally and politically, we live in a society that has promoted the concept of lock 'em up and throw away the key, and as a result, in America we have more people locked up per capita than any other country in the world, and that's something that we as Americans need to think about, we as Pennsylvanians need to think about, because under the trend that is presently put forth, our population of incarcerating 8 persons will increase in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and that concerns me. One of the things that I always looked at when I became a legislator is what we called our system: The Department of Corrections. The Department of Corrections. Somehow those legislators before us felt that the system of incarceration was for the purpose of corrections. I'm assuming that's what they assumed the responsibility was to correct, and I'm assuming that's because they did not want to lock people up and provide for them without any recourse of

N these persons getting a chance to rehabilitate themselves and become productive citizens. Now, the lifers' situation, which House Bill 1382 attempts to address, is my version of saying to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, saying to the people and saying to my colleagues, let us look