“Does quadriplegic inmate deserve compassionate release after 49 years?”

The question in the title of this post is the headline of this editorial from a Pennsylvania paper.  The editorial seems to answer the question in the affirmative, and here are excerpts:

Ezra Bozeman was convicted of second-degree murder in 1975. The jury came to that decision 10 months after the crime occurred, when Morris Weitz was shot and killed during a robbery at a dry cleaner’s shop in Pittsburgh’s Highland Park neighborhood.

Bozeman was sentenced to life in prison. He has maintained for 49 years that he is innocent. He has appealed to the state Supreme Court. He has filed eight Post Conviction Relief Act petitions. None of that matters. Not really. Not anymore.

Those in his corner say he has been a model prisoner, counseling and mentoring others. That doesn’t matter either.

Bozeman’s doctor says the inmate is dying. Since February, he has been a quadriplegic. After 49 years locked in a cell, he is now locked in his own body.

But that doesn’t matter to the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office either. In a hearing Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney Ronald M. Wabby Jr. argued against compassionate release for Bozeman. The reason? Wabby said there’s “no evidence to support their petition.”

Allegheny County Common Pleas President Judge Susan Evashavik DiLucente will be scheduling another hearing to take testimony from Bozeman’s physician.  Perhaps that will suffice. Gov. Josh Shapiro, the former Pennsylvania attorney general, supports the release.  The judge says she is inclined to agree.

Bozeman, 68, would not be released to go on a crime spree.  Quadriplegics cannot move any of their four limbs. He can move nothing below his neck. He requires a colostomy bag.  His attorney spoke of a pressure sore that reaches bone because the medical staff at SCI-Laurel Highlands cannot provide the kind of care someone in this condition requires.  A National Institutes of Health study claims the cost of acute care for a quadriplegic can top $500,000. It can require constant care a prison is not prepared to provide. There are bottom-line financial reasons to release a man who has been in prison since the Ford administration.

I find it interesting, though not uncommon, to see discussion of a compassionate release request framed in terms of what the inmate might “deserve.”  But if rretributive desert is really what’s most important in these casess, then the specifics of the crime, claims of innocence and post-crime behavior would all matter.  Yet this editorial, with its focus this inmate’s apparent inability to commit future crime and the high costs of his care, is really building a case for release based on utilitarian concerns rather than retributivist ones.  Still, I understand why asking whether it would be sensible for society/Pennsylvania to grant compassionate release does not have quite the same ring as asking if an inmate “deserves” release.

Meanwhile, this lengthy news article about the case highlights that some medical testimony is in dispute, and it provides some useful data and context concerning Pennsylvania’s recent compassionate release history:

Since 2016, the most recent for which data was available, through the end of 2023, 74 petitions for compassionate release were filed by Department of Corrections inmates.  Of those, 44 were granted, 10 were denied, and seven were otherwise withdrawn. In the same time, 13 people died waiting for decisions.

That’s not uncommon, according to Nishi Kumar, an attorney and head of medical-legal projects at the Medical Justice Alliance, an organization of physicians that work with incarcerated people. Many states have strict definitions of who can be released under compassionate release statutes, and some people are deemed “not sick enough.”…

So far in 2024, nine petitions have been filed in Pennsylvania, and five have been granted. One person died during the court process. Two are pending, including Bozeman’s. The number of compassionate release petitions filed each year has increased: from three or four each year to 13 in 2022 and 18 in 2023. Some of that could be because of continued pushes for criminal justice reform and increased attention on cases similar to Bozeman’s.

Spotlight PA, a nonprofit Pennsylvania news outlet, profiled Raymond Caliman in early 2022. At 68, an infection had left him bedridden and deteriorating but not at imminent risk of dying. After Spotlight’s piece published, the Abolitionist Law Center took up Caliman’s case, and he was ultimately released to hospice care in Philadelphia. He died less than two months later.

Pennsylvania has just under 40,000 persons in its prisons; even with the recent uptick in compassionate release petitions, it seems far less than 0.05% are seeking this release each year in the Keystone State.