Conditional Release Lawyers

Modalities

Conditional release is the serving of final sentence segment in liberty, under conditions and with pending sentence suspension, regulated in Arts. 90-92 CP.

Requirements

• Completion of minimum time required for each modality.
• Classification in third degree (except where there is a patent danger to life, Art. 91.3 CP).
• Good prison conduct without valid sanctions.
• Favorable individualized reinsertion prognosis.
• Satisfaction of civil liability or accredited plan.
• Commitment to comply with imposed conditions.

Procedure

Treatment Board raises proposal to PSJ, which resolves after Prosecutor report and, when applicable, victim in serious offences. Legal defence must articulate treatment dossier, private psychological report, external life plan, civil liability payment or plan.

Frequent Denial Causes

Denials usually invoke pending civil liability without accredited effort, absence of activities in anticipated, unfavorable prognosis, pending criminal causes, absence of roots, insufficient therapeutic commitment.

Appeals and Expulsion of Foreign Nationals

Against the Surveillance Judge's order, reconsideration and an appeal to the sentencing court, conditional release being a matter of sentence enforcement (5th additional provision LOPJ). For foreign nationals, substitution of the sentence by expulsion (Art. 89 CP) is a separate institution, not a form of conditional release.

Proving the legal requirements: third grade, time served and the reintegration prognosis

Since the 2015 reform, conditional release stopped being a fourth stage of imprisonment and is now structured as a suspension of the execution of the remaining prison sentence (Articles 90 to 92 of the Criminal Code). Under the ordinary regime of Article 90.1, the Prison Surveillance Judge requires four cumulative conditions: being classified in the third penitentiary grade, having served three quarters of the sentence, displaying good conduct, and having met the civil liability arising from the offence to the extent of the inmate's real ability to pay. Release is not automatic: it also depends on an individualised and favourable prognosis of social reintegration.

The third grade is the gateway and is governed by the scientific individualisation system of Article 72 of the General Penitentiary Law, organised into grades. The prognosis is built on the final prognosis report that the Treatment Board issues under Article 67 of that same law, which assesses the results of treatment and forms a probability judgment about the inmate's future conduct in freedom. The file also incorporates progress reports, participation in programmes, and the family and employment situation. The defence intervenes precisely so that this prognosis is documented in a solid, verifiable way, and to challenge unfavourable assessments that are not supported by objective data on how the sentence has been served.

Early-access routes and special cases: Articles 90.2, 91 and 92 CP

The Criminal Code provides several ways to bring forward conditional release relative to the general three-quarters threshold. Article 90.2 allows advancement to two thirds of the sentence where the inmate, having met the other requirements, has carried out continuous work, cultural or occupational activities. On a proposal from the prison administration, and once half of the sentence has been served, the Surveillance Judge may also advance release by up to ninety days per year of effective service relative to the three-quarters date, where those activities have been continuous and there is effective and favourable participation in victim-reparation, treatment or detoxification programmes (Art. 90.2, second paragraph). Article 90.3 allows release at half the sentence for a first prison sentence not exceeding three years, except for offences against sexual freedom and indemnity. Each route demands a reinforced reasoning of the prognosis, because the time spent in custody is reduced.

Article 91 addresses humanitarian cases: inmates who have reached seventy years of age, or reach it during the sentence, and the seriously ill with incurable conditions, for whom execution of the remainder can be suspended without having served the fraction of the sentence ordinarily required, weighing dangerousness and personal circumstances. Article 92 sets out a specific regime for the reviewable permanent prison sentence, with a qualified minimum term to be served before suspension can be ordered, which in that case lasts between five and ten years. The defence must pinpoint precisely which route fits each case, because the evidentiary requirements and the timing differ substantially.

Competent body and the appeal system: from the Surveillance Judge to the sentencing court

Conditional release is a matter of sentence-execution law, not a criminal offence: it is governed by the General Penitentiary Law 1/1979 and by the Prison Regulation approved by Royal Decree 190/1996, so there is no offence penalty or limitation period to measure here. The power to grant, refuse and revoke lies with the Prison Surveillance Judge, who decides by reasoned order, either of their own motion or on the inmate's application, following a proposal from the Treatment Board and a report from the Public Prosecutor. The defence's role at this stage is to file submissions, provide reports and request enquiries that strengthen the favourable prognosis.

The Surveillance Judge's order may first be challenged by a motion for reconsideration before the same court (recurso de reforma), and then by appeal: because conditional release is a matter of sentence enforcement, the appeal is heard by the sentencing court, not by the Provincial Court of the place where the prison is located, which deals with prison-regime matters (fifth additional provision of the Organic Law of the Judiciary, paras. 2 and 3). The complaint is reserved for orders refusing to admit an appeal. Where the contested decision could lead to the release of someone convicted of a serious offence, the appeal has suspensive effect until it is decided (para. 5). The defence must observe the deadline for each remedy with precision and direct the argument to the body competent at each level.

Interaction with consolidation, merger of sentences and review under a more favourable law

Working out when three quarters or two thirds of the sentence is reached is not done on an isolated penalty, but on the basis of service that results from the rules on concurrent sentences. Two figures that are often confused should be distinguished. Judicial consolidation under Article 76 of the Criminal Code, processed under Article 988 of the Criminal Procedure Act, is a judicial decision that sets the maximum effective term to be served and declares extinguished anything exceeding it. The merger under Article 193.2 of the Prison Regulation is an administrative operation by the prison that unifies sentences into a single file for calculation purposes. Both bear directly on the date on which the right to conditional release arises, so framing them correctly can bring that moment substantially forward.

Added to this are the rules of Article 78 of the Criminal Code, which, where the cap is less than half the sum of the penalties, allow the sentencing court to order the calculation of benefits, leave, third grade and conditional release to be referred to the totality of the sentences imposed, and the security period of Article 36.2, which for sentences over five years may condition access to the third grade. Finally, where a later legal reform proves more favourable, Article 2.2 of the Criminal Code requires its retroactive application even to final judgments, which can open the door to reviewing the sentence and, with it, recalculating the conditional-release thresholds. The defence studies all these pieces together to fix, with precision, the earliest date legally attainable.