This Oct. 17, 2007, photo, Kristina Fetters, 27, is photographed at the Mitchellville Women’s Correctional Facility in Mitchellville, Iowa.DES MOINES, Iowa – A dying Iowa inmate who was 15 when she entered prison will spend her final days in a hospice facility, a state board ruled Tuesday in granting her unprecedented parole.
The Iowa Parole Board’s decision for Kristina Fetters, 33, means she is the first inmate in the state sentenced to life in prison as a juvenile to be released after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year.
The high court said life sentences without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles, a ruling that’s positioned 38 Iowa inmates to possible resentencing with a chance at parole.
The board said at the meeting that Fetters, who was diagnosed in September with inoperable Stage 4 breast cancer, will be sent to Hospice Care of Central Iowa, The Des Moines Register reported (http://dmreg.co/18AqdNf ).
Fetters’ attorney said his client wants to die outside prison walls, and hospice was the hoped-for outcome for her family and friends.