Gregory Gadlin is a convicted rapist and child molester serving 35 years to life in prison under the state’s Three Strikes and You’re Out law after an assault with a deadly weapon, but an appellate court decision this week said he should be eligible for consideration for early release.
Now, police officers and other victims’ advocates warn that the ruling could open the door to early releases of more violent felons under Proposition 57, the 2016 initiative aimed at easing prison overcrowding.
State prison rules implementing Prop 57’s early release program that “exclude Gadlin and all similarly situated inmates from early parole consideration” run afoul of the law, the 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled, and “Gadlin is entitled to early parole consideration.”
“This ruling means more sex offenders and violent criminals will be applying for early release back into our neighborhoods,” said Paul Kelly, president of the San Jose Police Officers’ Association.
“During the 2016 campaign, Prop 57 supporters lied to the voters telling them rapists, child molesters and career criminals would not be released early,” Kelly said. “Who is standing up for crime victims?”
But criminal justice reformers say this week’s ruling will do nothing close to swinging open the prison doors.
The appellate court ruled only that Gadlin be permitted “early parole consideration, not release.” The Board of Parole Hearings, it said, “will be permitted to consider his full criminal history, including his prior sex offenses, in deciding whether a grant of parole is warranted.”
W. David Ball, an associate professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who supported Proposition 57, said he doesn’t see the appellate court decision leading to early release of violent offenders. He also noted that the ruling could be appealed to the state Supreme Court. And even if it stands, prisoners like Gadlin still face a steep hill persuading the parole board and governor — who can deny its recommendations — that they are safe to release.
“It’s not going to open up the floodgates,” Ball said. “There are lots of safeguards in place. This is just trying to make political hay out of something that’s a long, long way away from even releasing a single person.”
The ruling came the same week the California state auditor issued a report that found the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s programs have failed to reduce the state’s “stubbornly high” recidivism rates in which half of released prisoners reoffend.
The case comes amid ongoing debate over Proposition 57, which was aimed at easing state prison overcrowding by allowing early release consideration for nonviolent offenders. Many law enforcement officials said it went too far and would put dangerous convicts back on the streets.
California voters approved Proposition 184 — the Three Strikes law — in 1994 in a wave of outrage over violent crimes by career criminals, including the 1992 fatal shooting of 18-year-old Kimber Reynolds and the 1993 kidnap and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas.
The Three Strikes initiative called for criminals with a past conviction for a violent or serious offense — murder, armed robbery, rape and other sex offenses, assault, burglary — to face 25-years-to-life sentences for a third felony conviction, even if it wasn’t violent. State voters have since softened the measure.
In 2012 they approved Proposition 36, requiring the third conviction to be a violent or serious felony for a Three Strikes sentence.
In 2014, voters approved Proposition 47, reducing some non-violent felonies — drug use and crimes like theft, fraud, check kiting and shoplifting valued under $950 — to misdemeanors for offenders without prior convictions for murder, rape and certain sex and gun crimes.
And in 2016, voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 57, the The Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act. Proposition 57 left it to prison officials to clearly identify which crimes deemed nonviolent would qualify and how an inmate’s criminal history would affect eligibility. Final Proposition 57 regulations were approved last year.
Gadlin was convicted of forcible rape in 1984 and forcible child molestation in 1986, both of which required him to register as a sex offender. In 1998 he was convicted in Los Angeles of assault with a deadly weapon and, with added penalties for the earlier offenses, sentenced to 35 years to life in prison. He won a new trial on appeal but was convicted again on the same charges in 2007 and given the same sentence.
In November 2017, Gadlin challenged the state prison department’s exclusion of him from early release under Prop 57 because of his status as a three-striker and his prior sex offenses. The appellate court noted that an earlier ruling removed the three-strike status as grounds for not considering his early release, and focused on his prior sex offenses.
The state prison department argued that sex offenders “represent an unreasonable risk to public safety” to be considered for early release.
But the court ruled the department’s “policy considerations, however, do not trump the plain text” of the initiative. Early parole eligibility, the court said, “must be assessed based on the conviction for which an inmate is now serving a state prison sentence (the current offense), rather than prior criminal history.”
The next step for Gadlin could be a hearing before California’s parole board. Still, experts say even under Prop 57, it’s unlikely he would be released.