Advocates say we’re the only state without a law requiring release of dying inmates in some circumstances, and will press the Legislature to pass one.

Retired Honolulu lawyer Bob Merce has worked for years to win the freedom of prison inmates with terminal illnesses so they don’t have to die inside.

His success stories include a young woman with a fast-growing brain tumor in prison for drug offenses, who was released to a care home shortly before she died. Another was a Vietnam veteran with multiple sclerosis who served more than 30 years in prison for murder before he was moved to Tripler Army Medical Center.

Until now Merce has usually had to navigate Hawaiʻi’s prison and healthcare bureaucracies alone, but this year he suddenly acquired some influential allies.

Major players in the

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