Opinion ID: 196495
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Parole-Eligibility Statute.

Text: 7 The Massachusetts statute governing the parole eligibility of convicts serving terms of life imprisonment provides (and substantially provided in 1968) that: 8 Every prisoner who is serving a sentence for life in a correctional institution of the commonwealth [with specified exceptions not relevant here] shall be eligible for parole, and the parole board shall, within sixty days before the expiration of fifteen years of such sentence, conduct a public hearing before the full membership. 9 .... 10 After such hearing the parole board may, by a vote of a majority of its members, grant to such prisoner a parole permit to be at liberty upon such terms and conditions as it may prescribe for the unexpired term of his sentence. If such permit is not granted, the parole board shall, at least once in each ensuing three year period, consider carefully and thoroughly the merits of each such case.... 11 Mass.Gen.L. ch. 127, Sec. 133A. Until 1977, the Commonwealth considered inmates who were not only serving life sentences but also facing the grim prospect of overhanging from-and-after sentences as coming within the purview of section 133A. Based on that interpretation of the statute, the Commonwealth granted such inmates parole hearings (for possible parole from their life sentences into their from-and-after sentences) once they had served close to fifteen years. Accordingly, after the state court sentenced Hamm, correctional officials advised him that the parole-eligibility date referable to his life sentences would be November 28, 1983. 2 12