Florida Senate To Review Prison Release Procedures

October 22, 2013

The Florida Senate will conduct a “thorough review” of the procedures that allowed two inmates serving life sentences for murder to escape by using forged papers.

Sen. Rob Bradley, a Fleming Island Republican who is chairman of the Senate Criminal and Civil Justice Appropriations Subcommittee, announced late Sunday that he will hold a hearing in November on the escapes of Charles Walker and Joseph Jenkins, both 34, from the Franklin Correctional Institution..

“There is no reasonable excuse for the erroneous release of two murderers serving life sentences,” Bradley said in a news release. “The Senate will conduct a thorough review of how existing procedures failed to prevent these releases, and whether there exists any other, as yet undetected, erroneous releases. Every Floridian, and certainly every victim of crime, deserves to have complete and total confidence that this situation will never happen again.”

Walker and Jenkins were caught about 6:40 p.m. Saturday at the Coconut Grove Motor Inn in Panama City as they awaited someone to transport them out of state.

Bradley is asking for officials from the Department of Corrections, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the clerks of the court, the state court system and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to appear before his committee. The subcommittee is currently scheduled to meet Nov. 6. FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey and state Corrections Secretary Michael Crews told reporters Sunday that they have been reviewing release procedures. Crews said letters were sent Friday to chief judges and judges in each circuit that when an inmate’s sentence is modified, the FDLE will require the judge whose name is on the document to attest in a follow-up check to verify the change in the sentencing.

Jenkins, 34, serving a life sentence on a first-degree murder conviction from Orange County, received his release from Franklin Correctional Institution on Sept. 27 by using fake documents that indicated his sentence had been reduced. Walker, serving a life sentence on a second-degree murder conviction also from Orange County, used the same means to get out of the Franklin prison Oct. 8.

by The News Service of Florida

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News