reason to release inmates, although it could advise the governor on offering Executive Medical Clemency to certain inmates estimated to have less than three months to live. This compassionate release policy for terminally ill inmates was the second most restrictive in the country, and Virginia remains the only state that does not tailor any form of early release to inmates with complex, nonterminal illnesses or permanent disabilities. A bill to establish parole for inmates who are terminally ill or permanently incapacitated was supported by Northam during Virginia's regular legislative session for 2020 and passed in the state Senate but was not passed in the House of Delegates. Later in the year, Northam called a special legislative session partially devoted to criminal justice reform, and during this session, on October 28, he signed a bill allowing the parole board to grant conditional release to terminally ill inmates estimated to have less than twelve months to live; the bill largely excludes inmates convicted of violent crimes. Sentencing and prison reform Although early in his governorship, Northam signed a bill imposing a new mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison for those convicted of murdering a police officer, in May 2019, he vowed not to sign any further legislation imposing mandatory minimum sentences. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, he argued that such legislation is racially discriminatory and leads to over-incarceration. A year later, Northam signed a law exempting juveniles tried as adults in Virginia from mandatory minimum sentences. That same year, he enacted further reform for juveniles in the Virginia justice system by signing a bill that requires judicial approval for anyone under the age of sixteen to be tried as an adult; Virginia law had previously given prosecutors the discretion to charge anyone fourteen years or older as an adult. In December 2019, Northam directed the Virginia Department of Corrections to suspend a policy that had allowed strip-searches to be performed on minors during prison visitations. In April 2020, he signed legislation making the suspension of that policy permanent and barring prisons from threatening permanent bans on visitors who refuse to be strip searched. Although it had already been against the policy of the Virginia Department of Corrections to permanently ban visitors who refuse to be strip searched, there had been several instances of prisons threatening such bans. Another reform signed into law by Northam in 2020 allows judges to