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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Reuter) - Florida Tuesday freed 446 violent criminals including murderers, kidnappers and rapists under a state Supreme Court ruling that new and tougher sentencing guidelines could not be used to hold them.
In all more than 22,000 violent inmates serving time in Florida prisons were expected to gain from a ruling made in September by the state's highest court, which decided that changes in sentencing laws made last year could not apply to inmates convicted and sentenced before that time.
While Department of Corrections officials said their hands were tied, local law enforcement officers were upset by the release of so many inmates on the eve of the holiday season.
"We don't think that they should be released at all," Martin County Sheriff Robert Crowder said. "That's especially true with the holidays coming up, when crime tends to increase anyway."
Among the 446 inmates set for release were 107 convicted of murder, attempted murder or conspiracy to commit murder, 42 convicted on kidnapping-related charges and more than 150 sex offenders. All had been kept behind bars despite having accumulated enough "gain time" to be released.
Florida prisoners for years have been able to win reprieves from large chunks of their sentences based on good behavior and other factors. Because of prison overcrowding, inmates in the late 1980s were serving less than half of their sentences but Florida lawmakers last year limited such reductions to 15 percent of an inmate's sentence.
The law applied only to prisoners sentenced after it went into effect. But Florida's attorney general this year said corrections officials could use their discretion to prohibit early release for certain classes of violent criminals.
In April the Department of Corrections barred release of inmates sentenced for murder, sex crimes, assault and other violent offenses, about 22,000 inmates. But the Florida Supreme Court said the department could not apply the rule retroactively without violating the state constitution.
"Given that the amendment applies to a certain class of inmates who committed their offenses before the amendment's effective date, and acts to enhance the measure of punishment ... we are compelled to conclude that it violates the ex post facto prohibition," Justice Ben Overton wrote for the court.
The issue was brought to the court by lawyers for Richard Bing Gwong who was sentenced in 1989 to 22 years for second-degree murder.
The high court also refused a request from the attorney general to postpone the releases until a federal court reviewed the law. State officials planned to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court within the next few weeks. Meanwhile the releases will continue.
"The court said we couldn't apply the law to cases prior to the law change," DOC spokeswoman Laura Levings said.
Under DOC rules, released inmates receive $100 and a one-way bus ticket home, where more than half are expected to begin probation, community control or other special conditions for release. Of the 446 inmates eligible for release Tuesday, 188 were to be let go with no strings attached.
Some local officials said they had not even been informed which violent criminals would be released to their areas. "We would rather have heard officially from the Department of Corrections without having to be informed by the media," Mark Weinberg, said a spokesman for the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office.