Maryland lawmakers have passed legislation that overhauls the process for releasing sick and aging prisoners, which advocates had long described as broken and among the worst systems in the United States.

Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, this week signed a bill that makes several changes to medical and geriatric parole. Advocates say they’re mostly technical in nature but clarify the law and provide guidance to the Maryland Parole Commission to help with decisions.

“In a lot of other states, what this bill does is referred to as compassionate release,” said Lila Meadows, an assistant public defender in the Maryland Office of the Public Defender’s Decarceration Initiative. “And for me, that is the essence of medical parole: It’s about mercy.”

“I’m not sure that there’s any value in allowing people who are sick, who are elderly and who are unable to pose any threat to public safety to die in prison,” added Meadows, who’s also director of the Decarceration Initiative Clinic at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.

When the new law takes effect on Oct. 1, people can be released on medical parole if a licensed physician has made certain determinations about their health.

The parole commission must grant an in-person meeting to people who are incarcerated or their representative under certain circumstances.

The legislation also takes the governor out of medical parole decisions for those serving life sentences. Lawmakers already made that change in 2021 for the regular parole process.

In 2024, 14 people were released on medical parole, according to data from the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services.

With the new changes, people who are 65 and older and have served at least 20 years in prison under many circumstances will be eligible for geriatric parole.

Because of the way the original law was written, geriatric parole in practice existed in name only.

One prisoner was released on geriatric parole in the last 10 years.

“It’s really exciting to get this done,” said state Sen. Shelly Hettleman, a Democrat from Baltimore County who sponsored the bill. “It will bring an important remedy to hundreds of individuals who are incarcerated who will have no threat to public safety to have an opportunity to rejoin the community at really challenging times in their lives.”

Hettleman said she recognizes that people are incarcerated for important reasons and need to be held accountable for their crimes. But the criminal justice system, she said, also needs to operate humanely.

She said people are better than their worst act.

The chairman of the parole commission, Ernest Eley Jr., testified in favor of the bill.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown, a Democrat, and Maryland Public Defender Natasha Dartigue established the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative to address racial disparities in mass incarceration and praised the passage of the legislation.

But organizations including the Maryland Crime Victims’ Resource Center Inc. opposed the change.

Its executive director, Kurt Wolfgang, said people who are terminally ill might use their final days to exact revenge.

Wolfgang also scoffed at the idea that people who are 65 could be considered geriatric.

He spoke about the importance of finality in criminal cases and warned of the potential consequences if people feel their sense of justice has been thwarted.

“Victim participation in the system is critical,” Wolfgang said. “If they don’t report crimes, and they don’t go to testify about crimes, then the crimes don’t get resolved in the criminal justice system.”

Olinda Moyd, director of the Decarceration and Re-Entry Clinic at the American University Washington College of Law, said the new law makes changes that should be celebrated, especially removing the governor from medical parole decisions.

At the same time, Moyd said, there are a few parts of the legislation that she dislikes.

Under the new law, people serving 40 years or more in prison for multiple crimes of violence must undergo a risk assessment when being considered for geriatric parole.

Moyd said she’s represented clients who’ve waited more than two years for a risk assessment. For several reasons, she said, they’re problematic.

“We have a mass incarceration crisis in the state of Maryland, and the racial disparities cannot be ignored,” Moyd said. “We need to continue to look at ways to return to the community individuals who can be safety returned to their families.”

The passage of the bill, she said, is a step in the right direction.