Lawmakers ramp up efforts to reform California’s Elderly Parole Program

Sparked by renewed public outrage over recent high-profile cases, California lawmakers are ramping up efforts to block the early release for some of the state’s most violent sex offenders under a program that allows them to be paroled at age 50.

Several bills are making their way through the Legislature that call for sweeping reforms to California’s Elderly Parole Program, which currently allows incarcerated criminals to be considered for parole if they are 50 or older and have served a minimum of 20 years of continuous incarceration. Proposals would exclude violent sex offenders from the program, raise the minimum qualifying age to 60 and boost the continuous years requirement to 25 years.

For example, Senate Bill 1278, introduced in March by Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, would disqualify from the program violent offenders convicted of crimes such as rape, continuous sexual abuse of a child, and rape in concert with human trafficking of a minor, among other offenses.

“I believe the sexual offenses are particularly heinous, and I think there’s pretty ample proof that people who commit these kinds of offenses really can’t be rehabilitated,” Niello said in a telephone interview.

SB 1278 goes before the Senate Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, April 21, for review.

Local prosecutors weigh in

More than half a dozen other reform bills include Assembly Bill 2727 by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, which would disqualify inmates convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child, forcible lewd acts on a child, sexual intercourse or sodomy with a child 10 years old or younger, and sexual offenses involving multiple victims qualifying under the state’s one-strike law.

“When someone commits violent sexual crimes, especially against children, the consequences must reflect the seriousness of that harm,” Nguyen said in a news release, which also included a statement from Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, whose office co-sponsored the bill.

“I refuse to accept a reality in which the heinousness of the crime no longer matters, and the victims no longer matter,” Spitzer said. “Not every crime and not every criminal is the same and we cannot continue to allow our criminal justice system to be a one-size-fits-all system that erases accountability and ignores the victims.”

AB 2727, which also has been endorsed by Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman, will be considered during the 2026 legislative session.

‘Monsters like this’

While California’s Elderly Parole Program has faced years of scrutiny — including cases in Riverside County in which victims have publicly opposed early parole for their attackers — recent decisions involving two convicted sex offenders from Northern California, David Allen Funston and Gregory Vogelsang, have drawn more lawmakers into the fray.

Funston, 64, had been convicted in 1999 of kidnapping and sexually assaulting several children in the Sacramento area and sentenced to three life terms. He had served about 25 years when he was approved for release in February under the Elderly Parole Program. To keep him in prison, however, prosecutors charged Funston with another alleged child sexual assault stemming from a 1996 incident in Roseville. He remains in custody awaiting arraignment, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Vogelsang, 57, was convicted in August 1999 of kidnapping and molesting five boys in Citrus Heights, about 15 miles northeast of Sacramento. He had served 27 years of a 355-years-to-life sentence when he was granted parole under the same program in November 2025. However, Gov. Gavin Newsom referred his case to the full parole board for review, with a rescission hearing set for June 26.

“Funston and Vogelsang, they are perfect examples of the sorts of offenses that just should not be considered for early release,” Niello said. “We can’t get rid of elderly parole, because it was a judge’s panel that imposed it. … Since we’re stuck with it, let’s at least make sure that we don’t allow people that commit really heinous crimes from getting out earlier than what their original sentence would dictate.”

Funston’s case also inspired SB 356 by Sen. Brian Jones, R-San Diego, which proposes rolling back the minimum age and time served qualifications for elderly parole to 60 years old and 25 years, respectively.

“If they’re going to let monsters like this out of prison early, despite no signs of true rehabilitation and little of their lengthy sentences actually served, then we have a duty to act, and that’s what this bill does,” Jones said in a news release. “The Parole Board has proven time and again it is incapable of acting in the best interest of Californians and it’s painfully clear that the Legislature needs to intervene at this point.”

Jones, who did not respond to a request for comment, has long been on the front lines in the battle to reform the Elderly Parole Program. Last year, his SB 286 sought to exclude violent sex offenders and murderers from program eligibility. Although it unanimously passed the Senate Public Safety Committee, the bill died after it was put on hold due to budget considerations.

Jones’ SB 356 is pending review before the Assembly Public Safety Committee.

The Riverside and San Bernardino County district attorney’s offices and the California District Attorneys Association are among the agencies supporting the legislation by Niello and Jones.

“This bill aligns with the fundamental principle that the most serious crimes warrant the most serious consequences and ensures that victims and their families are not forced to repeatedly endure the trauma of parole hearings for dangerous offenders,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in a letter of support to Niello.

Inland Empire cases

Earlier calls to reform the Elderly Parole Program brought together victims, prosecutors and lawmakers from the Inland Empire.

One case that spurred public outage was the near parole of Cody Woodson Klemp, 70, of Moreno Valley, who was convicted in 1994 of 40 felony counts in connection with the repeated rape of his 14-year-old niece at his home in 1990, when she went to live with him. Kemp was sentenced to 170 years in prison, and told a probation officer at the time of sentencing he would kill his victim if he were ever released from custody, court records show.

Klemp had already been convicted of a previous rape in 1976 before an attempted rape in 1981 landed him in Patton State Hospital for three years as a mentally disordered sex offender. Both of his prior crimes occurred in Long Beach.

Klemp was granted parole in November 2023 after serving nearly 30 in prison. However, the governor’s office referred his case to the full parole board for review, and the panel ultimately rescinded Klemp’s parole in July 2024.

Another convict who qualified for the Elderly Parole Program was Sean Ramiro Lopez, a former English teacher at Clement Middle School in Redlands who was granted parole in May 2024. Lopez was convicted in 1995 for molesting three of his former students in the early 2000s and sentenced to 74 years in prison.

But he walked out of Mule Creek Prison in Ione after serving a bit more than 20 years of his sentence. Lopez was 50 years old at the time, meaning he had just met the minimum qualifications for early release under the program. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation classified him as “very low risk” to reoffend.

And in September 2024, Charles William Mix, 70, of Fontana, who is serving a 350-year sentence for the 2003 kidnapping and sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl he abducted from her Riverside home and drove to Utah, also qualified for early release under the program. But Mix was denied parole. His next parole hearing is scheduled for September 2031, according to the CDCR.

Among those applauding the proposed reforms are Klemp’s victim as well as Claira Stansbury, a former Riverside resident and sister of Mix’s victim. Both have been publicly fighting to change the Elderly Parole Program for the past few years. Stansbury said she feels encouraged to see more legislators finally starting to take notice and stand up to what she believes has been a problem for years.

“I’m hopeful because I think it’s such a big issue. There’s a lot of outrage from the community,” she said. “How do you turn your backs on victims? This is the time. I hope this is the year that change happens.”

Elderly parole origins

The Elderly Parole Program grew out of a class-action lawsuit that prompted a judge to order the state to reduce its prison populations in 2014. As a result, the CDCR established new policies and programs to thin out its prisons and reduce bed capacity. The program also was intended to ease the cost and burden of aging prisoners straining the prison health care system.

Last year, more than 27,500 inmates in the prison system were at least 50 years old, according to the CDCR.

Initially, inmates eligible for the program had to be 60 years old and have served 25 years of continuous incarceration. In 2018, however, the Legislature codified the program into law and it was incorporated into the state Penal Code. In 2021, the law was amended, dropping the age qualifying a prisoner for early release from 60 to 50 and reducing the length of required continuous incarceration from 25 to 20 years.

Now legislators are attempting to revert those qualifiers to what they were originally.

The CDCR emphasizes that the Elderly Parole Program is not a “one-size-fits-all” system, and has a system of checks and balances in place, with a parole decision reviewed by the governor and then returning before the full board for further review if need be.

Inmates sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole, as well as those convicted of first-degree murder or sentenced under California’s three-strikes law, are not eligible for early release at age 50 and after serving 20 continuous years. However, they may become eligible once they reach age 60 and have served at least 25 continuous years, according to the CDCR.

In 2024, the Elderly Parole Program played a role in reducing California’s prison population, which fell by nearly 30% over the past decade — from about 135,600 inmates in 2014 to 95,700 in 2022. That year, the Board of Parole Hearings scheduled 3,580 elderly parole hearings, but only 1,878 were ultimately held. Of those, about one-third resulted in release grants, while most ended in denials or findings of unsuitability. The remaining hearings were postponed, waived or canceled, according to CDCR.

Every inmate receives an evaluation by forensic psychologist to gauge his or her suitability for release in the months prior to a scheduled parole hearing, and the psychologist prepares a report for the parole board review prior to the hearing, according to the CDCR.

More than 97% of people released after an elderly parole hearing have successfully transitioned to the community without being convicted of another crime within three years.