By PATRICK JACKSON
Dover Bureau reporter
11/04/2003
Lawmakers reviewing the slaying of a Greenville man said little can be done to change the system that automatically released the suspect in the case from prison and put him under the supervision of probation officers.
Ralph Hawkins, now facing murder and arson charges in the death of Stephen Catalina, 89, was described as an unremarkable prisoner by corrections officials testifying before a special hearing of the House Corrections Committee. They said that after Hawkins' release, he gave no indication he would commit the crimes with which he has been charged.
House Majority Whip Clifford "Biff" Lee, R-Laurel, said he sympathizes with the loss suffered by Catalina's family. But, he said, corrections officials did what they were required to do under the laws under which Hawkins was sentenced to prison in the 1970s. Lee also said the Legislature could not do much to alter those laws for people either serving time under them or who are out of prison reporting to probation officers.
Lee is chairman of the Corrections Committee.
Hawkins was released from prison because he accrued enough credit for an automatic early release under the state's pre-1990 sentencing system, Correction Commissioner Stanley Taylor said.
The 1990 truth-in-sentencing law set minimum mandatory sentences for a number of crimes, eliminated the ability of a prisoner to seek early release from the state parole board and gave judges the power to disallow so-called "good time" factors that mandated early release under the old system.
Taylor said a review of the case by his office and the attorney general's office showed it was handled by the book.
Hawkins was released after serving 20 years of a 35-year sentence for rape and assault. He reported to his parole officer 116 times and received 55 random visits at his home or job, and had to undergo random screenings for drugs and alcohol.
Hawkins was to have been under a probation officer's supervision until his original sentence ran out in 2011.
"There were no warning flags in this case," Taylor said. "He was quiet and was working one, sometimes two jobs. ... In our business those were signs he was staying straight."
Hawkins, of the Lancaster Court Apartments in Greenville, is being held on first-degree murder and arson charges in the death of Catalina, who also lived in the apartment complex.
Prosecutors claim that Hawkins attacked Catalina in September, knocked him out, robbed him, then set his apartment on fire.
Catalina died in October from burns he received.
