AP reports,

Certain severely ill or incapacitated inmates in California could be eligible for parole under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The governor approved a measure allowing certain offenders to be released on supervised parole if they require constant medical care and are not considered threats. If a parolee's condition unexpectedly improves, he could be sent back to prison.

Offenders sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole will not be eligible for medical parole.

The actual bill, SB 1399, provides, 

[A]ny prisoner who the head physician of the institution ... determines ... is permanently medically incapacitated with a medical condition that renders him or her permanently unable to perform activities of basic daily living, and results in the prisoner requiring 24-hour care, and that incapacitation did not exist at the time of sentencing, shall be granted medical parole if the Board of Parole Hearings determines that the conditions under which the prisoner would be released would not reasonably pose a threat to public safety.

If the prisoner is actually bedridden and incapable of hurting anyone, I don't have a problem with that. The effect will be mainly to take the cost of that 24-hour care off the corrections budget and dump it on the Medicaid budget, which is a good thing. Whether the application of this law will actually be so limited in practice remains to be seen.