Board weighs plan to ease prison crowding

CARSON CITY -- The Nevada Pardons Board is considering a plan to free up prison space by releasing first-time inmates who have two years or less left on sentences imposed for nonviolent crimes.

Supreme Court Justice Jim Hardesty, a Pardons Board member, said illegal aliens in that category could be pardoned and turned over to the federal immigration agency for deportation.

He also asked state prisons chief Howard Skolnik to identify inmates legally in the U.S. who might qualify for early releases, saying it would be much cheaper for the state to pardon them to alternative programs.