Video : Transcript

⚖️ WHAT THIS BILL DOES
SF4409 expands access to compassionate release for people who are:
Aging and have served significant time

Seriously or terminally ill

Or facing extraordinary family circumstances
And it requires a rigorous review process that includes:
Public safety risk assessment

The nature of the offense

Institutional conduct

Victim input

Verified medical conditions

If someone is a risk, they are not released.
And if they are released, it is conditional, supervised, and can be revoked.

❤️ TRACY’S STORY
I want to tell you why this bill matters — and why it carries the name Tracy’s Law.
I met Tracy sitting in the day room in the Shakopee Women’s Prison in 2024.
She was frail, sick, and confined to a wheelchair —
barely able to spend time outside of her cell. She was in a prison within the prison.
Her body was clearly failing.
But what struck me the most was this: even though she had terminal cancer and a prison sentence that would out live her illness.
She didn’t even know there was an opportunity for release.
Immediately I started working on getting her conditional medical release.
because I was able to connect with her — and with the help of our outside advocacy group we were able to initiate a request for review for medical release.
Without intervention, she would have died in prison.
Thankfully
Tracy was granted that review.
She was able to go home.
And a few months later, she passed away —
not in a prison cell, but surrounded by her family.

And then there’s James Ferguson.
James was serving a Life sentence and
In 2006 he was diagnosed with cancer while incarcerated and suffered the ravages of that illness which were only exacerbated by his confinement, including being wheelcahir bound since 2009.
He fought that illness for years and finally went into remission in 2014 —
but by then, the damage was already done.
he was living with multiple severe health conditions as a result of both the cancer and years of incarceration —
conditions that the prison simply could not adequately accommodate.
He was reviewed for medical release in 2014
But he was denied —
because the criteria of the current policy are too narrow and too limiting.
He went on to serve 31 years in confinement and was not released until 2023.
Today, he continues to live with the repercussions of his illness and inadequate care due to the DOCs limited access to specialty health care, including permanent brain injury caused by a condition that went untreated while he was incarcerated.
That has left him with:
Severe short-term memory loss

Mobility challenges

Speech impairments
Had he received proper care before his out date,
he may not have lost those abilities.
And still — despite everything —
James shows up.
He works in the community, committed to making young people safer.
He shows up for the Hope Act work, even when it’s hard.
Because he is determined to make sure no one else falls through the cracks.
And that’s the point:
James did everything right — and the system still failed him.
because the criteria were too narrow to allow for real, meaningful review and consideration.

🔑 WHY THIS BILL IS NECESSARY
Tracy’s story should not depend on chance and James shouldn’t have fallen thru the cracks.
Right now, there are people in Minnesota prisons who are:
Aging

Seriously ill

Incapacitated

No longer a meaningful risk to public safety

And many of them:
Are not identified

Are not reviewed

Don’t even know they have options
This bill fixes that.
It creates a system so that people like Tracy are not invisible.

🏠 HUMAN & FAMILY IMPACT
This bill also recognizes that incarceration, when it is no longer necessary for public safety, has ripple effects:
Families are separated unnecessarily

Children go without parents

Loved ones die alone

Compassionate release allows for:
Dignity at the end of life

Family reunification when appropriate

Stability in situations where incarceration no longer serves a purpose

🔍 ACCOUNTABILITY & PUBLIC SAFETY
This is not soft on crime.
It is smart, structured, and accountable.
Cases are reviewed individually

Risk is assessed

Victims are considered

Outcomes are tracked

And again —
release is not guaranteed.

CLOSING
This bill does not ask you to open the doors.
It asks you to open the process.
To allow people to be seen for who they are today —
and to make decisions based on evidence, safety, and humanity.
Tracy should not have needed luck to go home and die with dignity.
That opportunity should exist for everyone who qualifies — by law, not by chance.
I urge you to support SF4409 — Compassionate Release, Tracy’s Law.
Thank you.