Two years of research by the state's Advisory Committee on Geriatric and Seriously Ill Inmates includes two suggestions that the General Assembly should not hastily embrace.

Even the 46-member panel is sharply divided on the research findings. That is a signal that proposals contained in the committee's report merit tough scrutiny by lawmakers - and, possibly, public hearings - before any action is forthcoming.

The two suggestions in question are:

That a person convicted of murdering someone before he or she turned 21 could be eligible to apply for release at age 45, if the murderer has served 25 years in prison. Others who have committed murder after turning 21 would be eligible at age 50, if they have served 25 years.

That a new category of "medical release" be implemented for seriously or terminally ill inmates.

Under current rules, a first-degree-murder conviction carries a death sentence or life in prison without the opportunity for parole, and second-degree murder carries a mandatory life prison sentence without parole. The suggestion by the advisory committee to make release at age 45 or 50 possible goes against the fact that the person who is in prison took another person's life and, by that act, relinquished his or her right to free movement in society.

While it would be more palatable if age 65 were stipulated as the earliest possible age for release, rather than 45 or 50, the ramifications of release at even that age should be considered carefully.

To the panel's credit, it decided that parole for murderers should not be automatic. The report recognizes that certain inmates should never be candidates for release

"Parole eligibility means that an inmate may be considered for parole," the report says. "It does not mean that the inmate will be immediately released or ever granted parole."

The issue of releasing elderly or terminally ill inmates produces another set of concerns. While releasing old or sick inmates would reduce the health-care budget of the state prison system, that cost - since most inmates re-entering society would not have health insurance - would revert to the state welfare system or to the free care provided by hospitals to the poor.

So, release would not necessarily eliminate the needs, costs and obligations from which the prison system would like to divorce itself.

The special committee was made up of judges, prosecutors, health care experts, victim advocates and others in the criminal justice arena. The suggestion regarding early release of murderers understandably triggered strong objections from the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association and the state Office of the Victim Advocate, who said in a joint statement, "At its most fundamental level, there are two lives involved in this discussion: the life of the offender and the extinguished life of the murdered victim."

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, was right in not trying to predict whether new sentencing laws would result from the advisory committee's work.

The advisory panel obviously devoted much time and serious thought to the issues before it, but the proposals emanating from its work show the difficulties of the task with which it was entrusted.

Meanwhile, the issue of lawmakers being targeted as "soft on crime" if they agree to any release of murderers, even seriously ill murderers, hangs over the study results and suggestions.

It could be a long time before substantive action is forthcoming on the report, if, in fact, there is any at all.