This story was reported in collaboration with Injustice Watch, a Chicago-based nonprofit newsroom. for stories about equity and justice in the court system.
Phillip Merritt鈥檚 dementia is so advanced he鈥檚 lost the ability to speak. But with the help of his cellmates at Western Illinois Correctional Center, the 71-year-old still manages to get on the phone with his brother every few weeks.
鈥淗e has to have someone call me, and then I don鈥檛 know what to say to him because he can鈥檛 understand anything, so I鈥檒l just talk,鈥� said Merritt鈥檚 brother, Michael, in an interview. 鈥淎ll he can say are two words. 鈥� I mean, he鈥檚 just gone.鈥�
Merritt鈥檚 deteriorating condition makes him a prime candidate to get out of prison under the Joe Coleman Medical Release Act, a pivotal criminal justice reform bill as an effective way to alleviate the state鈥檚 decrepit prison health care system, reduce the 鈥渟taggering鈥� costs of caring for ailing people in prison, and reunite families with frail loved ones.
Under the act 鈥� while incarcerated 鈥� Illinois prisoners can request early release if they鈥檙e terminally ill and expected to die within 18 months or if they鈥檙e medically incapacitated and need help with more than one activity of daily living, such as eating or using the bathroom.
But a year-and-a-half since the Coleman Act went into effect, an investigation by Injustice Watch and WBEZ found far fewer prisoners have been released under the law than expected, as the medical release process has become mired in the charged politics of criminal justice reform in the post-George Floyd era.
Behind the lower-than-expected numbers is the Prisoner Review Board, a state body appointed by Pritzker and confirmed by the Illinois Senate with final say on medical release requests.
As of mid-August, the board had denied nearly two-thirds of medical release requests from dying and disabled prisoners who met the medical criteria to get out of prison under the Coleman Act 鈥� including Merritt.
鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 believe it,鈥� his brother said. 鈥淗ow could they deny him? He can鈥檛 even talk!鈥�
More than half of the 94 denied applicants were older than age 60, and half had spent at least 15 years behind bars, according to an analysis of state prison data. At least two died in prison, including an 81-year-old who had been incarcerated for more than three decades and was scheduled to be released in 2025. Another man died five days before the board denied his request.
Meanwhile, the Prisoner Review Board has only granted 52 medical releases 鈥� a rate of fewer than three releases per month on average since board members began voting on those requests, records show.
Advocates say the board is undermining the Coleman Act and forcing ill-equipped prison staff to care for dying and disabled prisoners, even those with families practically begging to take them off their hands.
鈥淥ur prison system is now completely overburdened by people who pose absolutely no risk to public safety but are tremendously expensive to care for,鈥� said Jennifer Soble, lead author of the Coleman Act and executive director of the , a nonprofit legal group that represents dozens of medical release applicants.
鈥淔rom a cost-saving perspective, from a government-efficiency perspective, and truly from a moral perspective, we need to be doing something differently here,鈥� she said.
Donald Shelton, chair of the Prisoner Review Board, declined an interview request, but he defended the board鈥檚 record on medical release requests in an email sent through a spokesperson.
鈥淓ach case that comes before the board comes with its own set of circumstances to be studied and evaluated by members,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淒ue diligence is given by the board to every person who sets a petition before them.鈥�
More medical releases could save taxpayers millions
It鈥檚 unclear exactly how many of Illinois鈥� nearly 30,000 prisoners could qualify for medical release. Under the Coleman Act, the Illinois Department of Corrections is required to keep track of that number, but department officials said they don鈥檛 have it yet. A department spokesperson said the data would be published by year鈥檚 end.
What is clear, from from an independent monitor appointed by a federal judge, is Illinois prisons are unfit to provide health care for the thousands of aging, disabled and incapacitated prisoners.
Half of the state鈥檚 prison medical staff jobs are currently vacant. Prisoners with mobility issues suffer bed sores and frequent falls because no one is around to care for them. Some are even left sitting in their own waste, according to the monitor鈥檚 reports.
鈥淧rescriptions go unrenewed, cancers go undiagnosed. In the worst cases, as everyone here knows, people die painful deaths because of the lack of care,鈥� attorney Camille Bennett with the ACLU of Illinois said at .
Even this substandard care is expensive. Illinois paid $250 million last fiscal year to Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit company contracted to provide health care to state prisoners, according to state records.
Wexford鈥檚 10-year contract expired in 2021, but . Releasing more people under the Coleman Act could bring down the long-term cost of prison health care, said Alan Mills, executive director of the Uptown People鈥檚 Law Center, a legal clinic in Chicago whose lawsuits against the state led to the appointment of the independent monitor.
鈥淭he more prisoners there are who are medically needy, the higher the cost of caring for them, and the higher the bids will be,鈥� Mills said.
Conversely, if the Prisoner Review Board approved more medical releases, the cost savings for taxpayers in the long term could be in the millions, Mills said.
Daniel Conn, chief executive of Wexford Health Sources, did not respond to an interview request. LaToya Hughes, acting director of the Illinois Department of Corrections, declined to comment.
There are other, more immediate savings for Illinois taxpayers if more ailing prisoners were released, Mills said.
A showed Illinois spends more than $76,000 on average to incarcerate a single person for a year. Experts say terminally ill and incapacitated prisoners are much more expensive to care for. Prisoners whose medical needs can鈥檛 be met in prison infirmaries are escorted to and from hospitals by guards. With prisons short-staffed, officers already routinely require overtime pay.
By refusing to release more ailing prisoners, the Prisoner Review Board is also making it harder for prison medical staff to care for everyone else, Mills said.
鈥淲hat limited resources we have are being devoted to people who are most seriously mentally or physically ill, and that doesn鈥檛 leave any health care for anybody else at all,鈥� he said.
At the same time, the overburdened health care system is also blocking more prisoners from getting out under the Coleman Act.
Prisoners must be found qualified for medical release by a prison doctor or nurse before the board votes on their case. But prisoners often wait weeks or months to know whether they鈥檒l qualify, records show. In one case, a prisoner at Illinois River Correctional Center waited 152 days before finding out he didn鈥檛 qualify for release, records show.
Prison medical staff have said 240 prisoners who applied were unqualified for medical release. At least a handful of those prisoners lived in a prison infirmary, used wheelchairs or had terminal diseases like end-stage liver disease, and at least three died in prison, records show.
There are other frail and disabled prisoners who don鈥檛 see a doctor on a regular basis, 鈥渟o there鈥檚 no way for the doctors to know about their condition,鈥� Soble said.
Michael Merritt knows the limitations of the prison health care system all too well. His brother Phillip hasn鈥檛 received proper medical treatment in prison for years, he said, and he鈥檚 afraid of what could happen as his dementia worsens.
He wishes the state would let his brother die at home, where his family can take turns caring for him, instead of a prison cell where he鈥檚 unsure if there鈥檚 anyone to properly look after him.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know what the problem is,鈥� Merritt said. 鈥淭hey know they can鈥檛 take care of him in there the way he is supposed to be taken care of.鈥�
Medical release decisions dictated by politics
The Prisoner Review Board never told Merritt why they denied his brother鈥檚 medical release request. Their deliberations happen behind closed doors and the law doesn鈥檛 require them to provide an explanation.
Board chair Shelton said members weigh many factors when voting on medical release requests, but primarily focus on an applicants鈥� prior convictions, where they plan to live once they鈥檙e released and testimonies from the victims of their crimes.
An analysis of the board鈥檚 decisions shows there鈥檚 likely another factor at play: politics.
Under state law, the board is . The 12 current members include former law enforcement officials, educators, attorneys and counselors. Pritzker appoints all board members, who are then confirmed by the state senate.
Medical release requests are decided by panels of three board members; at least two must agree to either approve or deny a request. Shelton said board members are 鈥渃hosen randomly鈥� for the panels.
But so far, Republicans have cast more votes in medical release cases than Democrats 鈥� and they are much more likely to vote to deny those requests, an analysis of voting data shows.
Three out of the four Board members with the highest denial rates 鈥� Jared Bohland, Kenneth Tupy and LeAnn Miller 鈥� are Republicans. Each of them voted to deny release in more than 70% of the cases they heard, and each voted on more than a third of all medical release requests, voting data shows.
Bohland and Tupy, along with Democrat Matthew Coates, were on the panel that denied Phillip Merritt鈥檚 medical release request in July. They voted to deny six out of seven requests that day, records show.
A month earlier, Bohland was part of another panel, this time with two other Democrats, when they heard the case of 82-year-old Saul Colbert.
Like Merritt, Colbert developed dementia while serving time for armed robbery. They both also had previous violent convictions, records show; Merritt had a conviction for attempted murder, while Colbert was convicted of murder.
Both had family ready to take them in, and both were represented by the same attorney with the Illinois Prison Project. But the board voted 2-1 to release Colbert, with Bohland voting against.
鈥淭he only difference between those cases was the panel,鈥� Soble said.
Through a spokesperson, Bohland, Tupy and Miller declined to answer questions about their voting records.
Lisa Daniels, a former board member and restorative justice practitioner, said she believes some of her former colleagues are ideologically against letting anyone out of prison early.
They 鈥渟imply believe that a person should complete the entirety of their sentence, no matter the circumstances they present in their petition, no matter how that person may have shown themselves to be redeemed and no matter (if they鈥檙e) no longer a threat to public safety,鈥� Daniels said.
Daniels resigned from the board in January, . In the past few years, the state GOP has into a new front in the ongoing debate over criminal justice reform.
Democrats, who have a supermajority in the state senate, have failed to muster enough support among their own ranks to get all of Pritzker鈥檚 appointment through leaving the board with three vacant seats.
Pritzker declined an interview request.
In a statement, he acknowledged his administration has had a hard time recruiting potential board members because of the frayed political atmosphere around its work.
鈥淚n today鈥檚 political climate where supporting common sense criminal justice reform has become a lightning rod, the Coleman Act鈥檚 initial success should be seen as major progress in the right direction,鈥� he said.
Coleman Act has "failed to live up to its promise"
The day Pritzker signed the Coleman Act, its main sponsor, state Rep. Will Guzzardi, D-Chicago, and allow families to properly say goodbye to their loved ones.
鈥淚鈥檓 sorry we couldn鈥檛 afford this mercy to Joe Coleman, but I鈥檓 proud that we鈥檒l be able to do so for hundreds of other Illinoisans,鈥� Guzzardi said.
Criminal justice reformers celebrated the Coleman Act as a model for other states to follow. In a report last year, FAMM, a prominent national advocacy group, said the Coleman Act was one of the strongest so-called 鈥渃ompassionate release鈥� laws in the country.
But so far, the act has 鈥渇ailed to live up to its promise,鈥� said Mary Price, FAMM鈥檚 general counsel at FAMM and the report鈥檚 author.
Advocates want lawmakers to institute several changes to the Coleman Act to encourage the Prisoner Review Board to release more people.
Lawmakers should require board members to visit prison infirmaries to see firsthand the state of prison health care, advocates said. The board should also receive more training on how to evaluate the medical conditions of prisoners applying for release.
Advocates also want the state to provide prisoners who are applying for medical release with an attorney to argue their case. Guzzardi said he鈥檒l advocate for funding for that in the upcoming fall legislative session.
Lawmakers should also allow prisoners to reapply for medical release sooner than currently allowed, said William Nissen, a white-shoe-lawyer-turned-pro-bono-attorney for prisoners who鈥檚 worked on a handful of medical release requests so far.
Prisoners denied medical release currently have to wait six months before they can reapply, unless they get a special exemption from the board. Shelton has only approved three out of 10 requests so far, according to figures provided by the board鈥檚 chief legal counsel.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e representing a terminally ill person, then a large part of their remaining life is gone before you can even apply again,鈥� Nissen said.
Nissen said lawmakers should also require the board to explain why they denied a medical release to 鈥渋nstill a certain amount of discipline in the decision-making process.鈥� If board members have to articulate their reason for denying someone release, maybe they鈥檒l reconsider the decision, he said.
Phillip Merritt鈥檚 attorney is in the process of refiling his medical release request. His brother Michael doesn鈥檛 know if he鈥檒l get out this time. And he hasn鈥檛 been able to reach Phillip in three weeks 鈥� the cellmate who had helped facilitate the calls was apparently transferred.
But he鈥檚 certain he and his family can give Phillip a more humane send-off than any prison could.
鈥淎t least he could go peacefully,鈥� he said.
