(The Center Square) – In the last weeks of the 2026 legislative session, California’s lawmakers quietly decided against reappointing two members of the beleaguered Board of Parole Hearings.
The inaction on keeping Patricia Cassady and Teal Kozel in their posts follows a contentious year in which both members, along with the 19 other commissioners, approved the release of two convicted child sexual offenders, Gregory Vogelsang and David Allen Funston. Both men were sentenced to life in prison after convictions related to the sexual abuse of children, and both qualified for elderly parole after serving at least 20 years of their sentences.
Vogelsang, 57, was ultimately not granted elderly parole after public outcry, according to previous reporting by The Center Square. Funston, 64, was granted elderly parole and upon his release, was re-arrested by authorities from the Placer County Sheriff’s Office on separate charges on another child sexual assault case out of the Northern California county in the 1990s.
“I think it was the right decision,” Assemblymember Josh Hoover, R-Folsom, told The Center Square on Tuesday about not reappointing Cassady and Kozel. “I was glad to see that both of these individuals were removed from the board, essentially by inaction from the state Senate. I do think it’s just a first step. There’s a lot more we need to do.”
There's still a number of other members of the board who voted to release Funston back into Hoover’s district, Hoover noted.
“Ultimately, the job of the parole board is to keep public safety at the top of mind to determine in a very fair way if someone is rehabilitated or not,” Hoover said. “I think in the case of David Funston, he told the parole board himself that he was not rehabilitated, yet they still chose to release him. That really shows they’re not concerned about public safety.”
The Board of Parole Hearings could not be reached for comment this week.
“Decisions have consequences,” Anne Marie Schubert, president and CEO of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation and former Sacramento County district attorney, told The Center Square on Wednesday. “I’m grateful that our elected officials took this seriously. However, I do believe for the public to be fully aware, we should be doing audits on the decisions being made by parole board commissioners.”
Schubert, who was a prosecutor in Funston’s case, said she was shocked that Funston was ever considered for release on the state’s elderly parole program.
“Perhaps more problematic was the fact that he admitted during parole hearings that he continues to be sexually aroused by children, and he’s a pedophile,” Schubert said.
In reaction to consideration of the release of convicted sexual offenders, the Legislature introduced a number of bills in 2026 that sought to increase the age to qualify for elderly parole. The bill that ultimately passed, Assembly Bill 2727, authored by Assemblymember Stephanie Nguyen, D-Elk Grove, raised the qualifying age from 50 to 65, and requires those who were convicted of sex crimes to serve at least 25 years of their sentence, according to previous reporting by The Center Square.
“What I’d like to see is a reform of the elder parole,” Sen. Roger Niello, R-Fair Oaks, told The Center Square on Tuesday. “Fundamentally, that’s part of the problem. The age of 50 and 20 years served is a significantly lower threshold than what was initially established.”
The elderly parole program in California initially made prison inmates eligible for parole was implemented to fix problems with overcrowding in California’s prisons, Niello said.
“We really don’t have that anymore,” Niello said. “But it was the Legislature that actually reduced the age to 50 and 20 years served. It’s hard to define 50 as elderly.”
The Center Square reached out to Democratic legislators for this story, but they didn’t respond by publication time on Wednesday.
