Is 50 old enough for elderly parole? California lawmakers rush to change rules for sex offenders

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State legislators are taking aim at California’s parole system after two high profile sex offenders were granted opportunities for release from prison last year.

David Allen Funston and Gregory Lee Vogelsang each had been convicted of multiple sexual assaults against young children in the Sacramento region, but were both found suitable for parole in 2025 by California’s Board of Parole Hearings.

Under elderly parole statutes, many convicted felons with life sentences may become eligible for their first parole hearing if they are at least 50 years old and have served at least 20 years.

Funston is 67 and Vogelsang is 57, and politicians are challenging the notion that 50 is an old enough benchmark for sex offenders to age out of criminal behavior.

Lawmakers put forward several bills that would restrict parole for sex offenders, a change they say reflects the severity of the crimes as well as doubts about the potential for sex offenders to safely reenter society.

Some civil rights and prisoner advocacy groups are raising concerns about the proposals, arguing they could weaken parole laws that have proven effective in reducing the state’s incarcerated population.

One of the main bills is authored by Democratic Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen of Elk Grove, who represents the region where Funston and Vogelsang committed their offences. Her bill would raise the earliest parole age for sex offenders with life sentences to 65.

“I think rehabilitation is a thing — people can rehabilitate,” said Nguyen, who stressed she is not trying to repeal elderly parole altogether. “But when you’ve done things like molested little boys, ages 5 to 11, I just don’t know that you can change from that.

“It doesn’t matter 20 years. I don’t know that you can necessarily change yourself from wanting or stopping yourself from molesting little children. And as a mother to two young girls, this scares me.”

Funston earned parole at 67 years old after serving 27 years. He had originally been sentenced to three consecutive 25 years-to-life terms, plus an additional 20-year sentence.

Vogelsang earned parole at 57, also after serving 27 years. He had originally been sentenced to 355 years-to-life.

Nguyen’s proposed legislation would also require the parole board and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to refer sex offenders with life sentences for psychological evaluation through the Department of State Hospitals, which can choose to commit a person indefinitely to treatment if they deem them to be a “sexually violent predator.”

Currently, the state hospital screening only applies to sex offenders who are not sentenced to life sentences and will be released without a recommendation from the parole board.

In an Assembly Public Safety Committee meeting on April 7, Nguyen’s colleagues were quick to show bi-partisan support for the bill and requested to be listed as co-authors. It passed by an 8-0 vote.

“The way the law currently exists is a travesty to justice,” Assemblymember Tom Lackey, a Republican who is a retired California Highway Patrol officer, told CalMatters. “It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd, and it’s extreme. I think the public is finally over this stuff.”

Funston and Vogelsang remain in custody

Elderly parole dates to 2014 as part of court-mandated efforts to decrease the state prison population. A 2020 law lowered the elderly parole eligibility age to 50.

Gov. Gavin Newsom this spring expressed concern about the possibility of Funston and Vogelsang being released. He used his authority to request the board conduct further reviews of each of the men’s parole hearings.

Funston’s parole grant was upheld and finalized in an en banc ruling on Feb. 18 — where the entire parole board scrutinized the decision of the two commissioners who originally determined Funston was not an unreasonable threat to public safety.

“It was a solid, solid decision — legally sound,” said attorney Maya Emig, who represented Funston at the Sept. 24, 2025, parole hearing where he was found suitable. “There was candor. There was deep understanding, just such deep programming. He really did the work to earn his freedom.”

But on Feb. 26, the day of his release, Placer County filed new criminal charges against Funston from an old unprosecuted investigation. Prison officials handed him directly over to local law enforcement.

Funston remains in the Roseville jail, potentially awaiting a new trial.

Vogelsang’s finding of parole suitability went to an en banc review last month, and the parole board decided to schedule a further hearing to determine if his parole should be rescinded. He remains in state custody and will either be released or resume his life sentence.

A parole system in question

Because of Funston’s and Vogelsang’s potential chances at freedom, more public attention has been focused on the Board of Parole Hearings and its decision-making process. Republican lawmakers in March held a press conference outside of a board meeting to draw attention to Vogelsang’s potential release.

“Any member of the parole board who voted to release these predators — in my opinion, they should be removed right now,” said Lackey. “When you release a child molester back into the community, you’re putting more children at risk.”

People released from prison through the parole board have an extremely low recidivism rate with less than 3 per cent of them committing new crimes. Less than 1 per cent of them return to prison for crimes involving violence against another person.

A 2008 California Supreme Court case known as the Lawrence decision turned on the parole board’s repeated denials of parole to a prisoner. Justices held that the facts of a crime are “static” or “immutable” because they cannot be changed.

The court further stated that a “particularly egregious” crime or the static facts thereof cannot, by itself, support a denial of parole if there is no evidence that the offender poses a danger after lengthy rehabilitation.

“Legally, the board must release someone if they no longer pose a current, unreasonable risk to the public,” said Jennifer Shaffer, former executive officer of the Board of Parole Hearings. “The board takes its responsibility very seriously. It employs about 70 experienced forensic psychologists who evaluate each person’s risk prior to a parole hearing.

“The risk assessments they produce are based on decades of well-established research on what causes people to commit crimes.”

Nguyen, Lackey and others do not see how that process could apply to Funston or Vogelsang.

“He says he still gets the urges, and the way he controls those urges is splashing water on his face,” said Lackey, who said he read selected excerpts of Funston’s parole hearing transcripts. “This is what the parole board accepted as rehabilitation. Who believes that?”

While incarcerated, Funston hired his own therapist to provide him personal treatment. He worked through The Road to Freedom, one of the only established self-regulation programs for sex offenders. Over time, he went on to facilitate that curriculum and help other men like him.

“In order to be found suitable, people have to unravel their understanding of themselves — why they did what they did, how they became that individual to commit that crime,” said Emig. “It is a really difficult process. I believe in the work that I’ve done with my client, and I believe in the hard work that he did independent of me.

“There’s something lost in blaming the commissioners for doing their job and following the law.”

Elderly parole and rehabilitation

Nguyen’s measure has momentum, but a handful of advocates are speaking out against it.

Keith Wattley founded the nonprofit organization UnCommon Law to represent and help counsel incarcerated individuals with life sentences through their parole board and reentry journeys. Since 2006, UnCommon Law has seen 350 clients earn parole and reenter society successfully.

“Elderly parole is one of those mechanisms that we have that’s proven to work,” said Wattley. “The fact that there’s never been a single person who had a sex offence, was released with elderly parole, and committed a new sex offence after the release — that’s pretty good evidence that the process works in terms of serving public safety.

“The harm caused by these types of crimes is especially disturbing to most people. So I understand the anger, even the outrage, but the thing that’s missing is that the outrage is disconnected from the person’s current risk.”

During her 13 years leading the parole board, Shaffer saw many changes in policy, legislation and political agendas. Her main focus was to establish a structured decision-making process through which offenders could legitimately earn a second chance.

She raised an important point that shows a path for prisoners’ release even if Nguyen’s bill becomes law.

“History has shown that when the board denies people parole for political reasons even though they no longer pose a current, unreasonable risk to the public, the courts will intervene,” said Shaffer.

“And changing the law retroactively — taking away an incarcerated person’s right to parole consideration after they have committed their crime — will likely be reversed by the courts as a violation of the constitution after many years of expensive litigation.”

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Joe Garcia/calmatters, The Associated Press

This story was originally published by CalMatters and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.