Q: Will my friend make parole on her 4th time? she's already been denied 3 times. Sentence is 2 1/2-7.

A: Well something in your question doesn't make sense to me. You state that she competed the Shock Incarceration Program. If that is the case, she should have been released upon successful completion of the six month Shock program. It sounds like she did not complete Shock successfully and that is why she is appearing before the parole board periodically. If possible, she should try and obtain a Certificate of Earned Eligibility which is granted through participation in educational and vocational programs while in prison. That certificate would assist her in obtaining parole. If she goes before the parole board again and is denied, she should order the transcript of the hearing and file an administrative appeal. If the administrative appeal is denied, she has 120 days to file an Article 78 in the Supreme Court in the county where the prison is located, or in Albany County or in the county where the offense occurred. The Article 78 is effectively an appeal to a Supreme Court justice but she must exhaust all of her administrative remedies (i.e. internal DOCCS appeal) before filing an Article 78. She should ask in the prison library for a sample Article 78 petition. There is no way for me to estimate the chances of her being granted parole because I know nothing about the offense, whether its a violent or non-violent felony, how many disciplinary tickets she has or what, if any, programs she has completed successfully. The Parole Board is supposed to use an objective point system to calculate whether an inmate should be released but they often don't strictly follow their own regulations in my opinion. You may hire an attorney to file a parole appeal and/or file the Article 78 for her if the appeal is denied, however, Article 78's tend to be expensive.