First Medical Furlough Release In Alabama
Without fanfare, the Alabama Department of Corrections has released its first inmate under a new law that allows for medical furloughs of geriatric, incapacitated or terminally ill prisoners who meet certain requirements. Report from the Birmingham News.
According to the department, the inmate released was Omar Shariff Rahman, a 56-year-old who was serving life without parole at Donaldson Correctional Facility. “Having met required release criteria — determined to be geriatric and terminally ill — he was released to the care of his family on Tuesday, April 21st,” a department statement said. In an e-mail, Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said he understood that Rahman died about 30 hours later …
Under the regulations devised to carry out the Alabama Medical Furlough Act, a geriatric inmate is 55 or older, “suffers from a chronic life-threatening infirmity,” a life-threatening illness, or from “a chronic debilitating disease related to aging” and poses no danger to himself or society. The regulations define a terminally ill inmate as someone “deemed to have an incurable disease that would, within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within 12 months.” The regulations also define an incapacitated inmate as someone suffering from “a permanent, irreversible physical or mental condition” that prevents him from being involved in a crime or from committing violence, and needing help to meet his daily living and health care needs.
The medical furlough law took effect Sept. 1.
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