In the first year Massachusetts offered the option of medical parole, it was granted to only four of 33 inmates who applied.

Prisoners’ rights advocates have said the Department of Correction has been too strict in interpreting the criminal justice reform law passed by the Legislature in 2018, and that has limited prisoners’ chances of receiving medical parole. Now, the state’s highest court will have a chance to weigh in, in a case that could affect how state corrections officials carry out the medical parole program.

The Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments Friday in the case, Joseph Buckman v. Commissioner of Correction.

The plaintiffs, Buckman and Peter Cruz, filed petitions for medical parole but had them rejected by the jail superintendent as incomplete. Both men are serving life sentences for murder.

According to court briefs, Buckman, 73, is incarcerated at MCI-Norfolk and has metastatic lung cancer. He suffers from other chronic diseases including Crohn’s Disease, recurrent kidney failure, congestive heart failure and cataracts. In his petition, Buckman laid out plans for where he would live and how the cost of his medical care would be covered. But his petition was rejected as incomplete because he did not name specific medical specialists who would treat him and specific community accommodations, such as wheelchair-accessible housing.

After his attorney provided additional information, his application was considered and denied, after a hearing featuring testimony from jail officials and Buckman’s victim’s family members, who worried about the danger he would pose.

Cruz, 61, who was incarcerated at MCI-Shirley, had end stage renal disease and was on dialysis for 11 years. He had other chronic diseases including diabetes and coronary artery disease. He also submitted a plan for where he would live and for obtaining insurance coverage. His application was returned as incomplete because he failed to include a written diagnosis and documents showing that medical providers are prepared to provide the specific services he needs. Cruz has since died.

Attorneys for Buckman and Cruz argue that the superintendent cannot reject an application for medical parole just because it does not have a medical parole plan or a notarized physician’s diagnosis. They argue that superintendents are circumventing the strict time frame established by law for considering applications by deeming them incomplete. Under the law, the superintendent has 21 days to pass an application onto the commissioner with a recommendation.

They also argue that it is the responsibility of the sheriff or superintendent, not the inmate, to craft a medical parole plan.

“Many prisoners, and those advocating for them, do not have the medical and social service resources needed to secure a physician’s diagnosis or to prepare a detailed medical parole plan,” attorneys for the inmates wrote. “The superintendent does.”

The Massachusetts Department of Correction, Correction Commissioner Carol Mici and the superintendents of the two jails, in a brief filed by the attorney general’s office, say the superintendent has authority to return an incomplete petition to get more information. “This requirement enables the superintendent to make a thorough and well-reasoned recommendation to the Commissioner regarding release of the prisoner on medical parole,” they wrote.

The corrections officials argue that the prisoner has the burden of developing a medical parole plan, because prisoners are in the best positions to know where they would be living and what community, medical and family resources would be available to them.

The Committee for Public Counsel Services, Prisoners’ Legal Services, the Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and the Disability Law Center filed court briefs siding with Buckman and Cruz.

Attorneys for CPCS, which is the public defenders’ office, wrote that several inmates with pending petitions for medical parole, who were suitable for parole, died in custody – which CPCS attributes to regulations that make it harder for prisoners to get compassionate release. The regulations, they wrote, “have created serious impediments to medical parole for the extremely sick - precisely the people the legislature intended to provide an avenue to die outside of prison.”

Attorneys for Prisoners’ Legal Services called it “absurd” to expect a dying or incapacitated prisoner to prepare a medical release plan. “Even capable prisoners attempting the process alone would be stymied by numerous logistical barriers,” they wrote. For example, a prisoner cannot always easily access doctors or medical records – which the prison superintendent can.

Medical parole was established in 2018. Until then, Massachusetts was one of the few states in the country not to offer some kind of compassionate release to terminally ill prisoners who no longer pose a danger. Advocates for prisoners’ rights said the policy is compassionate to prisoners, and also saves the state money because it alleviates the burden of paying for expensive end-of-life care.

According to state figures, 10% of sentenced state prisoners are over 60. National data shows that prisoners are likely to show the symptoms of age earlier than in the general population, and are more likely to have chronic medical conditions, because of unhealthy prison conditions.