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By Mike Ward In the latest rebuke of state policies for classifying parolees as sex offenders, an Austin federal judge has ruled that top state parole officials can be held personally liable for continuing missteps. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin, in an order issued late Friday, blasted the state's continuing refusal to provide due process hearings before imposing restrictive sex-offender conditions on felons never convicted of a sex crime. Yeakel for the first time ruled that the seven-member state Board of Pardons and Paroles, 12 parole commissioners, state parole director Stuart Jenkins and other parole officials can face monetary damages for their actions. It's a significant determination that, if not reversed on appeal, could prove costly for both the officials and taxpayers, if several pending inmate lawsuits are successful. A jury verdict in another case two years ago cost the state approximately $80,000, officials involved in that case said earlier. "The state has not reached the end of their rope. They're way past the end of it. They're in free fall," said Denton attorney Richard Gladden, who hailed the order as significant in curtailing a long-standing state policy of classifying as sex offenders convicts who have no sex crime conviction without a full hearing in which they can challenge the designation. "There's nothing to stop another trial now except a settlement," Gladden said. "It's just a question of how much in damages will be awarded." Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, and other parole officials were not available to comment Monday. A spokesman said the ruling was under review. The order was the latest setback for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and state corrections officials, who have insisted for years that, to ensure public safety, they could impose the stringent conditions on parolees without a due process hearing. Although previous court rulings have required the hearings, the state has not routinely offered them until recently — and only then under certain circumstances. Yeakel's order — the latest ruling to indicate that federal courts have lost their patience with the state — came in a suit filed by parolee Buddy Jene Yeary. Last fall, the judge blocked the state from enforcing the sex offender restrictions — officially known as Special Condition X — on Yeary, an unusual step for a judge to take. According to state records, Yeary pleaded guilty to drug charges in 2003 in Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Though he was initially indicted on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child, his sentence order states that "the sex offender registration requirements (in state law) do not apply to the defendant," according to the suit. Despite that, state records show that when Yeary was paroled in the summer of 2007, parole officials required him to register as a sex offender, placed him under the restrictive sex-offender conditions of release and ordered him to participate in a sex offender treatment program. In his order Friday, Yeakel ruled that the state has for six years been aware that it must provide hearings to parolees in such cases and that officials' continuing failure to do so leaves them open to liability. "In light of the resistance of the state of Texas to providing parolees with the procedural due process guaranteed them by the Constitution, even after receiving repeated mandates from federal and state courts, the court is unconvinced that Texas will not return to its unconstitutional policies and practices," the 31-page order states. "Any stigmatic injury suffered by Yeary due to the imposition and continued enforcement of Special Condition X may entitle Yeary to compensatory damages." Yeakel refused to dismiss Yeary's lawsuit, as state officials had asked. Instead, he said it would head to a trial. He did dismiss as a defendant in the case parole board general counsel Bettie Wells, who advises the board but does not vote on cases or set policies. The ruling comes after years of legal decisions requiring state parole officials to provide hearings before they impose sex offender restrictions on felons never convicted of a sex crime. In addition to federal courts, the state Court of Criminal Appeals last fall ordered the restrictions removed from the parole conditions for a Houston kidnapper because he was not afforded a due process hearing before they were imposed and because he had not been convicted of a sex crime. Contact Mike Ward at 474-2791 Judge: Parole officials can be held liable over sex offender restrictions
Parole rates surge to avoid unsupervised releases
By Mike Ward Texas' parole rate for convicted felons has reached new highs in recent months, with the approval rate topping 40 percent this spring after hovering in the high 20s for several years. The parole rate for violent sex offenders reached nearly 60 percent in March. Officials say the higher parole rate is partly due to larger numbers of felons imprisoned in the past 20 years who are now reaching the end of their sentences, some meted out during the three-strikes-and-you're-out era of tough-on-crime laws enacted during the 1990s. Officials are putting more of these convicts on parole to keep them under supervision and in treatment after they get out of prison, rather than have them walk out unsupervised. The new numbers, obtained Tuesday by the American-Statesman, showed Texas' overall parole approval rates are the highest since September 2001, topping 40 percent in both February and March. The approval rate for April was just under 39 percent, the statistics show. Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, did not return a phone call Tuesday. Parole board members do not generally discuss their decisions, partly because of a state law that keeps most of the process secret. But others familiar with the parole system said the gradual increase in rates in recent months highlights a trend: More convicts — especially those serving time for aggravated sex crimes — are being voted into supervised treatment programs to ensure that they are not a threat to public safety after they get out. Parole rates in Texas are a tricky subject. They historically drop at times when a governor is running for office — the governor appoints the parole board members — and they rise at other times when more convicts are eligible or, in the past, when prisons have been crowded. Texas' overall parole rate has been inching upward from a low of 27 percent in October 2010 to almost 42 percent in March, statistics show. "Do you really want Uncle Creepy coming out after 20 years in prison with no supervision? No," said Michele Belanger, a former state parole official who works as a legal assistant in parole law in Huntsville. "If inmates discharge (complete) their sentence without any supervision, you cross your fingers; whereas, if they're released on supervision, you can keep track of them after they get out." Other officials suggest that more convicts who are getting close to completing half of their sentences of about five years are being seriously considered for parole because if they are not released into supervision now, they might complete their sentences before they can be reviewed again for parole. Current state law requires parole reviews every three years. House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, suggested another reason for the rise in parole rates: In the past five years, Texas has increasingly stressed treatment and rehabilitation programs, "and those programs appear to be working." Recent studies have shown a decline in recidivism rates as treatment programs have come on line. "If the parole board sees that, they will probably be more likely to vote someone into a program," Madden said. Marc Levin, director of the Austin-based Center for Effective Justice, which tracks criminal justice issues, agreed. "Having an effective treatment program for parolees that can make a difference and pay for itself is good corrections policy," Levin said. With the increase in parole approvals, the number of felons on supervised release has been climbing, as well. In February, 83,778 people were on active parole supervision in Texas, compared with 80,694 in March 2011. "There are a lot of sex offenders through their age and the length of the sentence who are coming up to get out, and I think it's good policy to release them under supervision," said Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who, with Madden, wrote legislation for more rehabilitation and treatment for drug addicts, drunken drivers, sex offenders and other convicts. The long waiting lists for several treatment programs have shortened; however, more than 500 convicted sex offenders face waits from six to 13 months for a slot in several programs that could be a key to their parole. "Our tough policies on crime are reflected in the increased parole rates, because after people are completing long and tough sentences, we have the programs to parole them into to ensure public safety is protected," Whitmire said. Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees parole supervision, said the additional caseload on parole is not a problem because additional parole officers are being hired to ensure that required officer-parolee ratios of 1-to-15 for violent crimes and 1-to-75 for nonviolent crimes are maintained. Although the state faced a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall last year, funding for that growth was included in the criminal justice budget, he said. Contact Mike Ward at 474-2791
Texas Parole Figures:
Parole rates surge to avoid unsupervised releases
Freed Texas Sex Offenders Aren't Really Free
By Anita Hassan
As police search for a violent sex offender who fled a Houston halfway house two weeks ago, a state senator is calling for a review of the civil commitment program that keeps those sex offenders under tight supervision after their prison sentences are complete.
Michael Elbert Young served 20 years in prison for an attempted aggravated sexual offense, the fourth violent sexual crime on his record. But when his sentence was over, the state decided he wasn't ready to live unsupervised. They placed him among 243 other sex offenders across Texas under round-the-clock supervision. No one has been released from supervision since the program began in 2000.
Just one week into his halfway house stay, Young managed to remove his ankle monitor and escape from the facility on Houston's northeast side.
"We have to ask where did something go wrong?" state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, told the Houston Chronicle. "This guy was being held under civil commitment and walked out the door."
Whitmire, who heads the Senate's criminal justice committee, called sex offenders the state's No. 1 challenge. While the civil commitment program has succeeded, he said a review is needed to pinpoint needed improvements.
As of now, offenders placed in civil commitment are under the strict supervision of a case manager, their activities are restricted to work and treatment, and they are all required to wear GPS ankle monitor systems for 24-hour tracking.
"It is much more intensive than being on parole," said Allison Taylor, executive director of the Office of Violent Sexual offender Management, the agency that oversees the civil commitment program.
Ankle Monitor Severed
Any violation of the commitment, including absconding, is a third-degree felony that sends offenders back to prison, Taylor said. Since the program began, 12 offenders have escaped, Taylor said, adding that Young is the only one that hasn't been caught.
Young and at least one other offender severed their ankle monitors to escape supervision.
"There is no foolproof method" to ensure offenders do not abscond, Taylor said. "Even in incarceration, inmates will still escape."
Both men were being held at the Southeast Texas Transitional Center, a private facility on Beaumont Highway run by The GEO Group. It is one of a handful of facilities contracted by the state to house parolees and offenders under civil commitments.
In a prepared statement, GEO officials stated that authorities are notified immediately when individuals abscond and declined any further comment on the facility or its procedures. Taylor said the halfway houses only provide shelter and not security, which is a matter for her agency.
Out of about 20 states with civil commitment programs for sex offenders, Texas is the only one with a strictly outpatient program, a decision made partly to keep down costs, Taylor said.
"We felt we could still protect the public with an outpatient program," Taylor said.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the laws which hold offenders under civil commitments are constitutional. However, critics argue that the fact that no one has been released from the program is further proof that the program is a way to extend prison sentences for sex offenders without due process.
"It is a disingenuous way to get around double jeopardy," said Philip Taylor, a licensed sex offender treatment provider based in Dallas.
In order to be placed under civil commitment, 16 months prior to their release, prison inmates are reviewed by a multidisciplinary team that must determine whether they are repeat sexually violent offenders, and if they are likely to commit another sexually violent offense, Allison Taylor said. If the inmate meets the criteria, a clinical expert conducts a behavior abnormality assessment.
Reviews Every 2 Years
If a behavior abnormality is identified, the case is referred to the state's special prosecution unit to seek a civil commitment, which places the burden on the state to prove that the offender is a sexually violent predator. Offenders can request a trial by judge, jury or come to an agreement with the state.
Due to an increase in funding from the Legislature in 2007, the state can now file up to about 50 petitions for civil commitment per year, said Gina DeBottis, head of Texas' special prosecution unit.
"I don't really anticipate that it will go beyond 50 because this program really is targeting the worst of the worst, so it's not for every single person," DeBottis said.
Civilly committed offenders are given reviews every two years. A judge determines whether the individual's behavior abnormality has been changed and they are safe to return to society.
While none of the civilly committed offenders have ever been discharged, Allison Taylor noted that none of the offenders in the program have ever been charged for committing another sexually violent act, showing that treatment is working.
"That to me is success," Taylor said.
However, Philip Taylor argued that if treatment is needed to ensure that a sex offender would never again commit a sexually violent act, the state should start offering it to sex offenders in prison.
"It's a golden opportunity to provide treatment, but they don't," he said.
It remains unclear how long an offender must undergo treatment to be released from a civil commitment since no one in Texas has ever been freed, Philip Taylor said.
"If it's good treatment, then release somebody," he said. "If not, then let's go back to the Supreme Court and look at this again."
anita.hassan@chron.com
Freed Texas sex offenders aren't really free
Feb. 4th
Stop the Addiction to Incarceration
Texas’ addiction to incarceration costs taxpayers millions of dollars. The ten most expensive inmates in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) have estimated average annual medical costs of $600,000 each! That's a huge price tag for a small number of inmates who are no longer threats to society.
The medical parole program is designed to allow for the early release of offenders who are terminally ill, physically handicapped, elderly, or in need of long-term care. Yet, in 2011, only 100 of the 1,125 cases eligible for parole through the medical parole program were approved.
Tell the Sunset Commission to increase the use of medical parole.
During the 2011 fiscal year, 78 inmates died while waiting for their medical parole recommendation to be processed. Failure to process medical parole recommendations in a timely manner costs taxpayers too much.
Take action: Tell the Sunset Commission that releasing more sick and dying inmates would save millions.
Medical Parole is Good for Texas!
"One study says as much as $76 million could be saved in health care and security costs over two years if an estimated backlog of 1,000 terminally ill or infirm inmates were released."
Parole Chief Denies Request To Remove Panelists
By Mike Ward
The chairwoman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has rejected a request to remove two former prison-system employees from voting on whether to parole Eroy Brown, a convict who was acquitted of murdering a prison warden and farm manager in a headline-grabbing case during the 1980s.
In a one-page letter dated last Wednesday, Rissie Owens informed Brown’s attorney, Bill Habern, that she would not reassign the case from a Huntsville-based panel of three parole officials that includes a retired Texas warden and a former corrections officer.
Statesman.com obtained a copy of the letter this afternoon.
“These individuals have and continue to perform their duties and responsibilities with the utmost respect and appreciation for each individual case they are charged with reviewing to make a release decision determination,” Owens wrote.
“Their backgrounds have never been called into question to date and I do not anticipate such in the future.”
Brown, whose acquittal on murder charges involving the deaths of a Huntsville prison warden and a farm manager in the 1980s shook the Lone Star corrections system to its roots, remains in prison serving time for robbing a Waco convenience store of $12 and some candy bars.
He is eligible now for parole on the robbery charge, and will be freed from prison during the next five years in any event because his time credits for good behavior will mean he will have served his sentence.
Habern and other supporters have argued that by paroling Brown now, he will remain under supervision— in a Los Angeles pre-release program for lifers — but if he is freed later, he will not be under any form of supervision whatsoever.
Two of the three members of the Huntsville panel must approve the case for Brown to be paroled. One member of that panel, Parole Commissioner Tony Garcia, is a retired Texas prison warden and a second, Pamela Freeman, is a former corrections officer.
Habern last week had requested that Owens reassign the case to another three-member panel. Owens’ rejection is dated the same day as Habern’s letter.
“Please assure your client that the pending parole review will be conducted fairly and without any voter bias being involved,” Owens said.
Habern said he now expects Brown will be denied parole.
“How can you be a disinterested voting parole panel member if you’re an ex-warden or an ex-corrections officer in the same system, at a prison in the same town where the incident took place?” Habern said.
“How that can that not affect your consideration of this case?”
Parole chief denies request to remove panelists
MICHAEL GRACZYK TENNESSEE COLONY, Texas — When Harvey Stewart first went to prison 60 years ago, gasoline was 20 cents a gallon, a postage stamp cost three pennies and Harry Truman was president. Now, as perhaps one of the longest-serving inmates in US history, the convicted killer is looking forward to the perks of freedom when he is released on parole in the coming weeks or months. An IPod or cell phone perhaps? Not for this 83-year-old. Stewart simply wants a root beer and a good meal. "Imagine that! Sixty years being down in this damn hole," Stewart recently told The Associated Press from the Beto Unit in East Texas, one of his many stops in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "I wouldn't recommend it. Man's a damn fool to even stick his foot in here." Stewart, awaiting his release to a halfway house or nursing home after being granted parole earlier this year, recalled his youthful days of robbing brothels in Southeast Texas for quick $3,000 pay days, of getting shot in the back while holding up a junk yard and murdering a man in what he insists was a self-defense killing. But the six decades in prison haven't been nearly as eventful. He counts among his highlights his brief escape in 1965 and a recurring headache from a prison van wreck a couple years ago. Besides those short-lived respites from monotony, Stewart has served his time isolated from the outside world. He doesn't recall receiving a single visitor in more than a decade. He's outlived most or all his immediate family. His parole was approved in April, with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles considering his recent history of good behavior, his age and declining health. "I'm too damn old to do any robbing," said Stewart, his blond hair now a balding gray brush cut. "I think I am anyway. My old ticker might kick out on me." Stewart is the longest-serving inmate among the 155,000 prisoners in the Texas system, though it's unclear if he is the nation's longest-serving inmate now or ever. Prison officials and historians say they're unaware of any agency or organization that keeps track of all inmates' jail time. Among other states with significant prison populations, convicted murderer James Moore, 78, has been locked up in New York since 1963. In California, 80-year-old Booker Hillery first went to prison in 1955 for rape and was returned in 1962 for a murder earlier that year while on parole. Norman Parker is Florida's longest-serving inmate, arriving in 1967. Stewart was first sent to prison in spring 1951 after a junk yard heist in Houston got him a 10-year sentence. He was paroled after serving six years but was convicted in 1958 of murdering a man in Beaumont and received a life sentence. Seven years later he broke out of prison for several days, then waited another two decades before being paroled a second time to a halfway house and worked as a dishwasher. He used his freedom in 1984 to eat a Big Mac for the first time, but by summer 1986 he was back behind bars, busted for a robbery plot. State corrections officials say he won't be released until a parole plan is completed, and will receive proper supervision in either a halfway house or nursing home. Officials would not estimate how much longer that could take or what kind of restrictions he'd continue to have. Even under halfway house restrictions or in a nursing home, corrections experts say he could be in for some challenges, noting that even short-time prisoners get indoctrinated to the rigid rules of prison. Meanwhile, Stewart says he's unfazed by how the world has changed during his confinement. "It really is cognitively and emotionally taxing, even though it is simple decisions you and I do every day without thinking," said Gaylene Armstrong, research director of the Correctional Management Institute of Texas at Sam Houston State University. "These folks are not used to making those decisions. ... If you think of just in the last five years what's changed for us: smart phones, not being pay phones, self-checkouts at grocery stores, ATMs, how to do things online. Even folks who have been off the streets for just a few years, that's all new to them." Stewart, whose last car was a 1958 Ford, maintains he's unfazed by how the world has changed during his confinement. "I've functioned in a lot of places," he said. "I know what's there and what ain't there." Stewart was born in Corpus Christi, one of five children whose father worked in the South Texas oil fields. A search for Stewart's relatives was unsuccessful, with records showing most of them deceased. Having outlived so many he knew, Stewart says it's been probably a decade since he had a visitor. "Looks like nobody wants something to do with me," said Stewart, who never married. His days are spent quietly and simply. Among his joys now is interaction with female corrections officers. He called their presence "the only thing that lightens the whole atmosphere." Then there's the occasional "pitty-pat" in his head, the result of being inside a prison van that rolled over in a wreck. His knees hurt but he's still able to walk, although "I'm not real fast anymore." Asked how he spends his days, he responds: "Well, I fart every once in a while." His cellmate these days is "only 70-something. In fact, I think he's 60-something. There ain't nobody my age down here." Asked what he hoped to do when he does get out, he gets defensive. "You think I want to get involved in some sex and get drunk," he said. Told that many inmates talk about feeling the grass on their bare feet and looking up at the sky without fences topped by razor wire, he said sarcastically: "Well, that's poetic." Instead, he looks forward to "a good easy-going meal and a root beer. I said a ROOT beer," he emphasized. And the things he'll miss about prison? "You ever run into a fence post or light post or something?" he asked. "You miss it?" Texas inmate paroled after 60 years
NOVEMBER 07, 2011 You can't go Home again
We've spent quite a bit of time recently discussing the Board of Pardons and Paroles' "Special Condition X," which applies sex offender status to parolees never convicted of a sex crime. But I wasn't aware of "Special Condition Z" until reading Mike Hall's report in a Texas Monthly web extra: That is, until the good people in Taylor County began complaining; in particular the people who enforce the laws. Police Chief Stan Standridge, District Attorney James Eidson, and Sheriff Les Bruce all wrote letters to the board asking that it not let East come back to Abilene. ... So on Thursday the board voted to add “Special Condition Z” to East’s parole, which restricts which counties he can go to. He can’t even enter Taylor, Jones, Runnels, Coleman, and Callahan counties. And since he was, by law, required to be initially paroled to Taylor County, now he can’t go anywhere at all. According to Jason Clark at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, “East’s current parole plan has been canceled. The next step is to look at any alternate plans already submitted. If that’s not successful, an institutional parole officer will go and meet with the inmate to try and determine if there is another suitable location for him to reside. The parole division will investigate any parole plans submitted. If a residence can not be found, the offender will be placed on a list for possible placement in a halfway house.” Hall calls East "a man without a county," which about sums it up. POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST LABELS: PAROLE
OCTOBER 30, 2011
Texas media waits till last minute for annual Halloween sex offender hype In politics, Halloween is when demagogues take their latest fear mongering tactics out for a spin to see if a gullible public will bite, and how hard. As the National Post put it, “A one-night festival of ghoulish subject matter, unhealthy food and talking to strangers, it is no surprise that Halloween is an annual magnet for moral criticism. Halloween is when parental paranoia is 'market-tested,' American columnist Lenore Skenazy wrote in a 2010 blog post. 'If a new fear flies on Halloween, it’s probably going to catch on the rest of the year, too.'” Which is how we get this annual flurry of sex-offender-related stories on Halloween. Forget for a moment that there are only two instances that anyone has identified in the history of the nation of kids being sexually assaulted on Halloween, and in neither instance did the offender have a criminal record that would place them on the sex-offender registry. Reality isn't as important as the opportunity for hyping fear. When Grits first noticed this annual phenomenon several years ago I blamed the media. But tracking it closely, one discovers that nearly all local stories on the subject stem from a press release from the local Sheriff, probation department, or some other official, local source, so really it's law enforcement hyping the issue that drives coverage. Since it's not actually news but really just self-interested spin, I doubt the media would bother to produce these stories on their own without explicit prodding from officialdom. Bottom line: Your kids are in FAR greater risk from traffic accidents, drunk drivers, or even being struck by lightning (not to mention obesity and tooth decay) on Halloween than from sex offenders luring them with sweets. Indeed, in terms of sex crimes against children, Halloween may actually be the 'safest day of the year'. If you're lecturing your kids on the risks from sex offenders before they go out instead of making sure they can safely see through their Halloween mask and reminding them to watch for traffic, you're probably diverting their attention - and yours - from the most serious public safety issues surrounding the holiday. MORE: James Alan Fox 'makes the excellent point' that there is indeed a crime spike on Halloween, but that it's not sex offenses against children but workaday street crime that routinely increases on that day and should be the main policing focus. AND MORE: See related items from Diane Dimond, Karen Franklin, and at Slate.
See related Grits posts: POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST LABELS: HALLOWEEN, SEX CRIMES, SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION, TEXAS PAROLE BOARD
OCTOBER 26, 2011
TDCJ, parole board publish self-evaluations for Sunset process If you care about criminal justice reform, now is the time for you to speak up and voice your concerns. TCJC is very excited to tell you about a unique opportunity to offer input and suggestions that will help improve Texas' criminal justice system. Presently, the Sunset Advisory Commission has begun its review of TDCJ and other criminal justice-related agencies, including the Board of Pardons and Paroles, the Windham School District, and the Correctional Managed Health Care Committee. Based on its evaluation, the Commission will make recommendations on how each agency can be improved or whether the agency should be abolished. You can take part in this opportunity for improvement by letting us know what should be done to improve Texas' criminal justice agencies. TCJC has created a comprehensive guide to the Sunset process to help individuals understand the process, how they can get involved, and what resources are available.
Please click the link below to download a PDF version of our guide to Sunset:
To download a 1-page flyer on how to participate in the Sunset process, please click below: Again, the Sunset process is in its beginning stages, and most agencies under review have already submitted Self-Evaluation Reports (SERs), which are available on the Sunset Advisory Commission's website. To view each agency's SER, visit the Sunset SER webpage Here!
To view individual agency SERs, please click on the links below: Note: The Correctional Managed Health Care Committee's SER is not yet published. An agency's Sunset review typically only occurs every 12 years, so we must seize upon this rare opportunity to improve the criminal justice system. Through the Sunset process, and with your help, we can achieve the necessary reforms that can make Texas' criminal justice system a model for others. They're right. The Sunset process is a unique opportunity to suggest improvements at the agency at a deeper-in-the-weeds level than is often possible. Check out those self-evaluations, as will I, and I'm sure Grits readers will be hearing more on these subjects sooner than later. POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST LABELS: PAROLE, SUNSET, TDCJ
OCTOBER 05, 2011
Bizarre commentary from parole board chief on medical parole
In the Tyler Morning Telegraph today there's a pretty-much workaday story about healthcare costs in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice that covers familiar ground for Grits readers. State Sen. John Whitmire is quoted decrying how much it costs to keep elderly inmates locked up and provide them constitutional levels of healthcare. And in the traditional "quote both sides" fashion of modern journalism (as though there are only two), the senator's comments are paired with Rusk County DA Michael Jimerson who told the paper, "What Whitmire should do is go to Washington and do something to change the laws so inmates don't get Cadillac health care." Jimerson "said costs shouldn't matter because the offenders are paying the price for their crimes." Same ol', same old. Money's always no object when you're spending the taxpayers' dime.
The data in the story on high geriatric health costs won't surprise Grits readers any more than the back-and-forth debate between prosecutors and budget-writers: "Records from the 2009-10 Correctional Managed Health Care report to the Texas Legislation showed offenders 55 and older averaged $4,853 in yearly medical costs, while the average for those below that age was $795." These are facts and debates most Grits readers have heard before and most of the data was accurate and well-presented, if not exactly "news." (More like "olds" - these are longstanding controversies.)
What caught my eye, though, were bizarre representations from parole board chair Rissie Owens that simply can't be justified:
"Forty-five percent of all prison and state jail inmates received have been 55 and older at the time they entered prison to serve their sentences," she said. "It also appears that these older inmates are serving sentences for violent offenses as almost 6 percent of those 55 and older have sentences for crimes ranging from homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, sexual assault of a child, robbery and assault/terroristic threats."
Ms. Owens said numerous factors are reviewed during parole decisions.
"Age is one factor, but we do not just focus on the age of each offender," she said. "The numbers indicate that there have been more offenders received at TDCJ in the age group 55 to 60 than any other age group at the time of prison entry."
I don't know why Mrs. Owens would say such things or why any reporter would publish the quote when the error is so easily debunked, but this representation is about as far from accurate as you can get. While I can't find an apples to-apples number for received inmates 55 or over, according to the agency's annual statistical report (pdf, p. 30), in FY 2010, 6,854 inmates 50 years old or more entered TDCJ, out of 72,315 who entered Texas prisons or state jails that year.
That's 9.4%, not 45%, and really the comparable number is less since my stat includes inmates received age 50 and up. Just 1,010 inmates age 60 and up entered TDCJ that year, according to the annual statistical report. So about one out of every 72 new inmates is 60 years old or older.
One might think the reporters just misinterpreted Owens' use of data or the numbers were misquoted, but her other comments make clear she believes - or wants the public to believe - that older offenders make up a large proportion of new offenders. It's just a flat-out falsehood that "The numbers indicate that there have been more offenders received at TDCJ in the age group 55 to 60 than any other age group at the time of prison entry." That's not true. Here are the number of new receives for TDCJ in FY 2010 by age range:
So the suggestion that "more offenders [are] received at TDCJ in the age group 55 to 60 than any other age group" beggars belief. It's just a fabrication.
Similarly odd to me is the comment that "It also appears that these older inmates are serving sentences for violent offenses as almost 6 percent of those 55 and older have sentences for crimes ranging from homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, sexual assault of a child, robbery and assault/terroristic threats." That explains denying medical parole for those 6%, but that also means, if accurate, that the overwhelming majority (94%) of inmates older than 55 did not commit those types of awful crimes. Should we punish them extra for the crimes of the 6%? What a strange assertion!
According to the above-cited statistical report (p. 31), 20.5% of total "new receives" at TDCJ in 2010 committed violent offenses to get there, so if the figure for violent crimes among older offenders is 6%, that's substantially lower, not some grave, extra cause for concern. It's possible to manage those 6% without applying the same release criteria to the other 94%.
All the data and analyses attributed to Mrs. Owens in this story were either a) false or b) did not support her interpretation. But it just gets quoted and repeated and for the most part, reporters don't call officials on it when they make such screwball comments.
October 6 will be Grits for Breakfast's 7th blogiversary - the first post on this blog was seven years ago tomorrow. The reason I started Grits was precisely to counter - on criminal justice topics, anyway - this brand of modern journalism where reporters don't resolve factual disputes in their stories but merely "quote both sides" without vetting statements from public officials to make sure they're telling the truth. The majority of posts on this blog have the same structure: Quote mainstream media reports then correct factual errors from self-interested or self-justifying pols who're blowing smoke up some poor reporter's ass. Though many days I find that task somewhat boring and repetitive, stories like this one show the function is just as necessary today as it was when the blog began. It's one thing to "quote both sides." It's quite another to quote lies and truth and then portray them as equivalents.
POSTED BY GRITSFORBREAKFAST
LABELS: HEALTH, MEDIA, PAROLE
April 01, 2011
Tinkering with parole release could result in nine-figure budget savings
For the first time this week, legislators began publicly considering
legislation that would actually, signficantly reduce the prison population,
though by tinkering with parole mechanisms on the back end instead of tackling
the overall sentencing structure.
The House Corrections Committee on Monday heard legislation from state Rep. Alma
Allen, HB 2352, that along with legislation proposed by state Sen. John
Whitmire, would significantly reduce Texas' prison population and reduce
caseloads for the parole board by removing one of the grounds for setting off
offenders for release on "mandatory supervision."
The bill doesn't apply to so-called "3G" or serious, violent offenses, and the parole board could still deny release if they determine that "the inmate's release would endanger the public." According to the Criminal Justice Impact Statement, requiring the automatic release of offenders is expected to result in decreased demands upon the correctional resources of the State due to shorter terms of confinement in prison.
In fiscal year 2010, 8,594 offenders were discharged from prison and after removing from that group those ineligible for release to mandatory supervision, 5,506 of those offenders would be subject to the provisions of the bill.
Of the 5,506 offenders subject to the provisions of the bill, 805 offenders accrued no good time and would still be subject to discharge release leaving 4,701 offenders released to mandatory supervision and serving shorter terms of incarceration (approximately 3.21 years).
It is likely a substantial number of currently incarcerated offenders would be released as a result of the bill but the number would be contingent on the amount of good time accrued and time served by these offenders on the effective date of the bill, and the ability of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to process offenders for release.
Keep in mind, of course, that even if they're "set off" another time or two,
most of these folks will be getting out soon, anyway. In fact, if they serve
100% of their time, when they leave there is no state supervision at all upon
reentry. About 72,000+ prisoners leave TDCJ each year, about half of them with
no community supervision by parole officers at all.
Marc Levin from the Texas Public Policy Foundation pointed out that changing
this policy would allow TDCJ to better use its pre-parole programming because
it would provide more certainty regarding who would be released when, at least
for a certain class of offenders. And since parole board members currently
spend about 90 seconds per file before making a decision, Levin said, anything
that can reduce their caseload and let them focus on more serious cases makes a
lot of sense. Also, he pointed out, the parole board would still set release
conditions in all these cases, and suggested using risk-assessment instruments
to identify those who may need additional scrutiny by the parole board.
Since the law still requires the parole board to consider whether "the inmate's
release would endanger the public," perhaps such a risk assessment would be
exactly the ticket.
In any event, going forward this legislation would decrease demand for prison
capacity by thousands of prisoners each year (10,000+ annually by the 4th and
5th year) who have not been determined to "endanger the public." Chairman Jerry
Madden laid out the legislation in Rep. Allen's absence, declaring that, if the
state must reduce its prison population as a result of cuts in HB 1, this is
one of the safest ways to do it.
The fiscal note says Allen's bill would save $124 million over the next biennium, and much more in the out-years. Combined with Sen. Whitmire's legislation, the two bills would save more than $270 million over the next biennium - much more in the out years. Still not as much as needed to make all the budget numbers work, but a good start, if they'll do it.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
March 3, 2011
Fabelo predicts prison bed shortages without policy changes
At the beginning of the hearing, the committee heard testimony from Dr. Tony Fabelo who described prison population trends and projected the number of increased prisoners faced by the state if diversion programs are cut as anticipated in the House and Senate budgets. By 2013, he said, under the House budget as filed the state would be 12,857 beds short; under SB 1 on the Senate side, TDCJ would be 9,634 beds short. In other words, under either budget Texas will need to build or lease several new prisons over the next two years.
Boiling it down, Fabelo said Texas has only two real options: "Reduce the size of cuts" or "Change policies to reduce demand for prison space." That's it, pick your poison. Building or leasing new prisons isn't an option if you want to cut $786 million from TDCJ's requested biennial budget, as Gov. Perry and the House have proposed. The only remaining path is to "Change policies to reduce demand for prison space."
He offered three policy suggestions at the end of his presentation to reduce prison numbers. Option 1 involves implementation of LBB Performance Report recommendations, including a "supervised reentry program for those presently released after completing their [full] sentences." In other words, when someone has completed, say, 90% of their time or have one year to go, they'd be paroled so that their initial reentry period would occur under supervision. That would reduce the prison population by 1,800 over the next two years and up to 9,000 inmates over the next five, says Fabelo.
The second option suggested: "Reintroduce SB 1909 from 2007 and passed by the Senate that requires mandatory probation and treatment for low level drug possession." The five year fiscal benefit to the state would total $500 million. Sen. Rodney Ellis is carrying the bill again this session.
A third option might free up 6,000 additional beds, said Fabelo: Shock probation on technical revocations, capping the time in prison for property and drug offenders revoked on technical violations to no longer than 12 months. That idea is not dissimilar from Grits recent suggestion that judges be required to more frequently utilize Intermediate Sanctions Facilities for technical violators. However you decide to skin that cat, the state can find large cost reductions by changing how they deal with that category of offenders.
Fabelo also suggested taking measures to edge up parole rates toward levels anticipated by the Board of Pardons and Paroles' official guidelines, noting that a 1% increase in the parole rate would reduce the inmate population by 1,500, while a 1% decline would increase the prison population by a like amount. Presently the overall parole approval rate is just above 30%; increasing it to 35%, which is the rate suggested by the board's official guidelines, would free up thousands of beds. There are seven risk categories to which potential parolees are assigned, and it's the lowest risk parolees who are being released at below-guideline rates, i.e., the lowest-risk offenders are the ones the parole board is holding onto longer than the guidelines suggest, a situation that's been happening as long as I've paid attention to the Board of Pardons and Paroles. The BPP could singlehandedly solve this conundrum of their own accord, but they appear to have little interest in doing so unless somebody (read: the Legislature) makes them.
These aren't the only policy changes that would do the trick; indeed, they're really rather modest proposals compared to more aggressive approaches advocated on this blog, and IMO the Lege should go farther. But at least we've finally reached a point - for the first time, to my knowledge, publicly - where legislators have acknowledged that policy changes affecting sentence length must accompany cuts at TDCJ. That's been obvious for more than a year, but at least they're beginning the conversation in earnest now.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
March 01, 2011
TDCJ closure of 'Intermediate Sanction Facilities' exactly the wrong budget cutting strategy
Regular readers know TDCJ recently released its finally approved cuts to be implemented the current fiscal year (i.e., immediately, in the current budget cycle; see this pdf summary). And yesterday I linked to a story quoting the probation chief in Beaumont, who argued that cuts to diversion programming will boost much more expensive prison costs. Especially troubling in that regard is the agency's decising to close one Intermediate Sanction Facility (ISF), put off opening another one, and eliminating Project RIO, the main employment assistance for ex-felons in Texas.
It's hard to overstate how precisely back-assward these cuts really are, literally the exact opposite of the approach the agency should be taking. And they bode ill regarding what priorities will be applied as TDCJ makes much larger cuts in its budget for the next biennium.
It's easy to see why cutting employment and reentry services is a bad idea because every offender when they leave prison has a choice to make whether to resume a life of crime. Having a job and a stable income make the right choices a lot easier to make. That first year to 18 months is pivotal in determining whether an offender will recidivate, with getting a job and staying off drugs among the most predictive factors. Given that, cutting job assistance for ex-offenders quite arguably could increase crime.
Texas has loads of prison capacity (155,000 beds, mas o menos), most of it full, but in many ways we have the wrong kind of facilities. In the '90s, Gov. Ann Richards and the Democrats pushed to triple Texas' prison capacity, building large warehouses designed to incapacitate offenders, but mostly (despite stated good intentions to the contrary, the type with which the road to hell is paved), they never provided treatment, rehabilitation or reentry services, much less an effective means for judges to apply short-term consequences for probation or parole violators. The result: Even technical violators were revoked for a full prison term.
Intermediate Sanction Facilities are new units created as part of the 2007 probation reforms to give judges somewhere to send probation and parole violators for short-term punishment without revoking them for their full prison for their full stint. That way, somebody with a string of technical violations but no new crimes, in theory, could be punished for their noncompliance with short-term incarceration without TDCJ and Texas taxpayers having to foot the bill for their full prison sentence. The problem has been that judges have been slow to use ISFs and continue to revoke offenders for technical violations at higher-than-reasonable rates. According to the latest data, "In FY2010, there were 24,239 felony revocations to TDCJ, of which 48.8% were a result of technical violations community supervision conditions."
Texas' 2007 probation reforms were permissive, giving judges new tools and options, but if so many judges refuse to utilize those tools, that amounts to an "unfunded mandate" in the other direction, from the county to the state, and it's in the state's interest to limit how much extra cost counties can inflict on the state coffers when cheaper options are available.
This is what Grits means when I've argued for "finishing" the 2007 probation reforms: We've created mechanisms that could help solve the problem, but the reforms' effectiveness appears to have hit a wall after achieving initial reductions, in part because of noncompliance by key counties and nonparticipation by others. But the strategy is still sound: Reduce the number of offenders revoked for their full sentences on technical violations by, say, an additional 30%, and that's more than 3,500 fewer prisoners entering TDCJ to serve long-term sentences every year. It's not a silver-bullet solution, but it's a piece of the puzzle that would go a long way toward allowing the agency to close more units and stave off predicted, short-term prison population increases.
To make that happen, IMO the law should be strengthened to require judges to use ISFs for technical-only violations (with defined exceptions for special circumstances) instead of merely creating the facilities and giving judges discretion to do so. Too many - especially in Collin and Bexar Counties, but also elsewhere - just won't use that discretion and still revoke lots of technical-only offenders to TDCJ. If somebody's committed a new crime, fine, then revoke them. But if a probationer had dirty UAs, missed meetings, didn't pay fees, or even absconded, short-term incarceration in ISFs is often the better option. It's both cheaper for the state and gives the offender a chance to change their behavior instead of punishing them for years at the taxpayers' expense.
Regrettably, TDCJ's 2011 budget cuts go in the opposite direction, closing the North Texas ISF (whose contract expired yesterday) because, "Based on utilization trends and available beds, this facility is currently not required in order to meet program demand." Same goes for an ISF facility in Jones County which was slated to open last fall, but "Due to the slower than anticipated growth in SAFP/ISF utilization, this facility has not been opened and is not needed at this time."
The solution here isn't to close ISF capacity but to force the system to use them where appropriate, overruling recalcitrant judges by statute for certain classes of technical-only violators, even absconders when there is no other criminal charge (again, with exceptions for special circumstances, which I'm sure our friends the DAs and probation directors would immediately point out for us). Don't eliminate diversion resources because they're underutilized, force judges to use them before revoking people to prison. That would let the agency reduce reliance on long-term facilities in order to shut down older, more expensive units, as well as those with chronic understaffing.
I'd also like to see judges compelled instead of merely authorized to grant early release from probation for successful probationers sentenced on lower-level offenses. The 2007 reforms required judges to consider it halfway through the sentence, and the number of early releases climbed dramatically, though from a very low starting point. Much more, however, could be done. The main reason such probationers are kept on the rolls is that they pay fees that sustain the department's budget, a motive that will become even stronger if TDCJ's suggested cuts to CSCDs are enacted. But petty offenders clog up caseloads and divert focus from supervising more dangerous folk, and caseload sizes are about to skyrocket under the proposed House and Senate budgets. Plus, keeping low-risk probationers on the rolls heightens the chance that a minor incident years after the fact will result in a long prison sentence. Letting probationers earn their way off supervision through good behavior just makes good sense from the standpoint of managerial efficiency, reduced recidivism and simple economics.
There are plenty of other policy changes that could be made to reduce Texas' prison population without harming public safety, but strengthening diversion programming instead of eliminating it should be at the top of the Legislature's list. This round of FY 2011 cuts takes the knife to the wrong part of TDCJ's budget.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
January 12, 2011
Parole caseloads too high to monitor ex-offenders
In Dallas a TV station has a story titled "Most Texas parole officers say they are overworked," which is based on a report from the state auditor discussed on Grits a couple of months ago. A lawyer quoted in the story identified the main problem:
Attorney Joe Padian, who represents dozens of offenders who are currently up for or out on parole, said that there is a problem with supervision.
"The problem is, they need to find a way to prioritize which offenders need heavy supervision and which don't, then concentrate on watching the potentially dangerous offenders," he said.
Padian said he believes parole officers are overburdened by large caseloads that require constant supervision for offenders who don't need it.
The auditor not only found that parole caseloads are too high but that parole officers don't receive required in-service training and lack basic technology like voicemail on their telephones to help them do their jobs.
In 2007, the Texas Legislature changed the law to allow many probationers to earn their way off of probation early through good behavior. The same should be done for parolees so TDCJ can focus limited supervision resources on those who need it most. Otherwise, in the current budget environment it's almost unimaginable the agency can hire more POs, improve technology or provide officers more training.
Reducing caseloads would strengthen supervision for those most at-risk and avoid expending resources on those who pose little threat. From a political perspective - where lessening supervision even for low-risk offenders risks allegations that you're soft on crime - who knows if it's possible? But from a policy and public-safety perspective, though, the need to reduce caseloads both for parole and probation officers borders on imperative.
One out of every 22 Texas adults is in prison, in jail, on probation or on parole: There's no way the state can supervise nearly 5% of the population effectively through the criminal justice system, even in economic good times, much less when facing a $15 to $27 billion budget shortfall. We'd all be safer if limited resources were focused on supervising the highest risk offenders instead of trying to keep tabs on everybody and their dog.
Parole caseloads too high to monitor ex-offenders
Parole, reentry, and cutting corrections costs A few tidbits on parole stood out from my notes from Wednesday's meeting of the Texas House Corrections Committee on prisoner reentry ... Parole board chair Rissie Owens thanked the committee for additional treatment beds and told them they were responsible for an uptick in parole rates, which is up to 31% this year, she said, and which would be (just barely) the highest rate in recent memory if it's sustained for the rest of the year. In particular, she noted, waiting lists for in-prison treatment beds have been eliminated and there's no lag time when a prisoner is told they'll be released upon completion of required programming. We talk a lot on this blog about best-practice reforms on the probation side, but I was pleased to learn that the parole board has applied to participate in a technical assistance arrangement with the National Parole Research Center. Before parole, the committee was told, a parole "plan" must be developed, investigated and approved by the department before release. Problems creating the plan were cited as the main reason for delays in release after the parole board had granted approval (followed distantly by subsequent disciplinary violations by the inmate). On average, that process takes 43 days, the committee was told, but in extraordinary cases it can take many months. Parole not only contributes to the equation regarding inmate population through decisions on releasing prisoners, but also by deciding who to revoke. Owens said that 19,107 parolees were reviewed last year for potential revocation, three-quarters of whom were not revoked. Parole division director Stuart Jenkins described how parole officers now use a "Violation Action Grid" that dictates intermediate sanctions that may include anything from increased reporting or supervision to a stay at an Intermediate Sanctions Facility. There were 7,460 parole revocations in 2009 out of 105,820 offenders supervised, according to the TDCJ's annual statistical report [pdf] - a respectably low ratio of just 7%. One problem facing the department, said Jenkins, is that warrants may be issued by parole officers when violations don't really justify revocation. Of parolees revoked to prison, the committee was told, 46% committed new crimes, 40% had both a new crime and technical violations, and 14% were technical violations only. All of those revoked for technicals, said Owens, had been through Intermediate Sanctions Facilities at least once and were chronically noncompliant. Jerry Madden asked about a couple of discrete categories of offenders, questioning in particular whether parole eligible inmates who are eligible for deportation should be prioritized for release. He said there were hundreds of DWI offenders so situated who'd been denied parole. Madden also asked about a promising pilot program he'd authored (HB 3226) to let TDCJ pay for free-world housing for parolees if they're eligible for parole but have no place to go and the cost of paying their rent is less than the cost of incarcerating them in TDCJ. Jenkins said the program had maxxed out at just more than 300 parolees and currently was only being done for 155, but that providers in all the major counties had agreed to participate. Chairman McReynolds questioned Owens lightly about low medical parole rates, but you can tell they'll be revisiting the issue when the state begins to talk seriously about budget cuts. The Chairman said his committee had recently visited TDCJ's "cancer wards" and were told that 40% of TDCJ's $800 million healthcare budget was going to pay to care for frail, elderly inmates. That's $320 million to care for a small (but growing) fraction of TDCJ prisoners. As costs for elderly inmates increased, however, the parole board has become less willing to grant medical releases. From their annual report (pdf, p. 23), here are the total number of medical releases over the last several years:
2005: 174 McReynolds said he wanted to talk with Owens going forward into the session about how the Legislature could "help" the parole board increase approval rates for medical parole, saying that caring for frail elderly inmates is a "huge budget driver" for the agency. Owens said that Thomas Leeper - who is a former City Attorney from Huntsville and former Assistant City Attorney in Bryan - heads the three-member review panel in Huntsville that considers medical parole. She added that on July 7 she, Mr. Leeper and TDCJ's medical director will be meeting to discuss the subject. Leeper only joined the board last year, according to the parole board's annual report (pdf), so he can't be blamed for any failures to use medical parole in years past. Perhaps their meeting next week will spark a welcome change in the board's direction on medical parole. I've been talking about policy changes that could allow the state to close several prisons next year to save money in the budget, but the parole board could accomplish the same task with just a minor uptick in parole rates for nonviolent and low-risk offenders. UPDATE: Parole attorney Bill Habern emails to say that "In our office we still have clients who have been long approved for parole waiting 9 months and more to even get into sex offender treatment." Fair point: I think mostly the "treatment" discussion on Wednesday revolved around substance abuse. Parole, reentry, and cutting corrections costs
Marc Levin: Texas parole reforms lowered crime, cost January 5, 2010 Public safety is job one, but recent improvements in Texas parole outcomes demonstrate that we can be safer while saving money. In 2008, 1,016 fewer Texas parolees were alleged to have committed a new crime than in 2007. Net savings may exceed $96 million. These gains continued in 2009, though scaling back parole supervision could reverse this progress. Why are so many fewer parolees committing crimes? For starters, substance abuse treatment resumed in 2005. Prior to 2007, drug tests were sent to a laboratory, creating a delay of a few weeks. Now, results are instant and most parolees with a drug problem admit to it before being tested. Violators who do not pose a public safety risk are immediately referred to outpatient treatment. Graduated sanctions such as curfews and increased reporting have been enhanced, ensuring a swift but commensurate response to each rule violation. Parolees who repeatedly violate the rules or commit a misdemeanor are often sent to an Intermediate Sanctions Facility for approximately 90 days, in lieu of being revoked to prison. Some parolees at these facilities receive drug treatment along with follow- up counseling upon release. Literacy, GED and workforce preparation programming are available at some facilities. Parole officers have increasingly been oriented towards helping parolees succeed while some states are known for simply "trail'em, nail'em, and jail'em." Funding for parole chaplains was restored in 2007. Parole resource centers emphasize decision-making based on concern for others and the victim. Texas also has smaller caseloads than many states, ranging from 15 to 75. Employed ex-offenders are far less likely to re-offend, and 65 percent of Texas parolees are working. In contrast, 80 percent of California parolees are unemployed. Job placement and training for parolees has been enhanced since 2007 through closer ties between parole offices and local workforce centers. In Texas, parole is a privilege, not a right. Inmates demonstrate their commitment to change through good behavior and completion of work, education and treatment programs. Each case is reviewed based on individualized factors and the severity of the offense. Furthermore, the most dangerous Texas sex offenders are ineligible for parole. The most seriously violent inmates serve 87.5 percent of their sentences, with serious sex offenders serving 97.5 percent. Yet two-thirds of offenders enter prison for a nonviolent offense. Prosecutors recognize the value of strong parole policies. The National District Attorneys Association notes that low-risk offenders can be released without jeopardizing public safety if they are properly supervised. Without parole, they would subsequently be released without any supervision. While the primary benefit of reducing crime by parolees is the averted human and economic toll on victims, preventing crime also saves money. Incarcerating an additional 1,016 parolees would have cost $20.8 million. Moreover, building 1,582 prison beds would have cost $76.2 million. Prison costs 13 times more than parole, but if supervision, treatment, workforce development and chaplaincy for parolees are scaled back, more parolees may commit new crimes and be revoked to prison. The result: more crime and higher costs to taxpayers. Instead, we must continue to break the cycle of crime. Since prisons consume 85 percent of the corrections budget, the best way to save money is to prevent crime so fewer lockups are needed. Texas remains tough, but is also smart on crime. As policymakers face budget pressures, they must remember that a strong parole system is vital for public safety and taxpayers. Marc A. Levin is the director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a non-profit, free-market research institute based in Austin. His e-mail address is; mlevin@texaspolicy.com Texas parole reforms lowered crime & cost
COURTS
No liability for parole chief
Judge repeals jury fine but chides state board.
By Mike Ward
An Austin federal judge has overturned personal damages of $21,250
that a jury had imposed on the chairwoman of the state parole board a
month ago, but the judge did not change the finding that officials
violated a paroled convict's constitutional rights by denying him a
required hearing for 576 days.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks again harshly criticized state parole
officials for the way they classify parolees as sex offenders,
including many who have never been convicted of a sex crime.
The Tuesday decision absolves Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
Chairwoman Rissie Owens of personal liability in actions against Ray
Curtis Graham and still leaves state taxpayers liable for paying
Graham's legal fees, which are estimated at more than $100,000.
In his new order, Sparks wrote that Owens has been aware of problems
in the parole system but did nothing until the court ordered her to
do so.
"Her inattention is mystifying, and it shows her to be some
combination ... of 'indecisive, insensitive, inattentive,
incompetent, stupid, (or) weak-kneed,' " Sparks wrote, quoting from
another court decision in a related case.
Even so, Sparks said, "her inaction, however abstruse, does not make
her personally liable in this case." He left intact the portion of
the verdict that determined that Owens and state Parole Director
Stuart Jenkins had violated Graham's right to due process. Owens
could not be reached for comment.
Graham's lead attorney, Richard Gladden of Denton, said an appeal of
Sparks' new order is planned.
"The judge has reached out and found hyper-technical reasons to
foreclose the jury verdict," he said. "Maybe he thinks he's scared
her enough to make her change her ways in how these cases are
handled, but this order is definitely an about-face from the verdict."
Graham had sued the parole board after he was classified as a sex
offender in December 2007 though he was never convicted of a sex
crime. He was arrested on aggravated rape charges in the 1980s, and
parole officials used that as a basis for classifying him as a sex
offender five years after he had been released on parole.
Graham said he was never allowed to review evidence against him
before the parole board made its decision in December 2007, despite
several federal court orders requiring such hearings. The jury
verdict on Oct. 8 came after an unusually contentious, high-profile
trial, during which Sparks had declared a mistrial and fined an
assistant attorney general for disregarding his warnings about making
prejudicial comments in front of jurors.
Spark's new order continued his earlier harsh criticism of the parole
process.
"The Board as a whole seems to regard the procedural due process
rights at issue ... as annoying pests that plague and torment it
through no fault of its own," Sparks wrote in his 32-page order made
public Thursday.
mward@statesman.com; 445-1712
October 09, 2009
Parole board chair Rissie Owens personally liable for rights violation
Texas' Board of Pardons and Parole violated the rights of an individual who was required to register as a sex offender as a condition of parole, without so much as a hearing, even though he'd never been convicted of a sex crime, a federal jury found yesterday.
Even more surprising, the jury held Parole Board Chair Rissie Owens personally liable, while Judge Sam Sparks fined the state's attorney for prejudicial comments in court. Reports Mike Ward from the Austin Statesman ("Jury says state officials violated parolees right to hearing," Oct. 9):
An Austin federal jury on Thursday found that two top state parole officials violated the constitutional rights of an ex-convict who was denied a required hearing for 576 days.
Jurors also held Board of Pardon and Paroles Chairman Rissie Owens liable for $21,250 in damages and awarded Curtis Ray Graham attorney's fees that are expected to top $100,000.
The verdict came after an unusually contentious trial presided over by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who in August had declared a mistrial in the case and who earlier this week fined an assistant attorney general for disregarding his warnings about making prejudicial comments in front of jurors.
Graham sued the parole board after he was classified as a sex offender even though he was never convicted of a sex crime. He was arrested on aggravated rape charges in the 1980s, and parole officials used that as a basis for classifying him as a sex offender five years after he had been released on parole.
Graham alleged he was never allowed to review evidence against him before the parole board made its decision in December 2007, despite several federal court orders requiring such hearings.
It is rare for ex-convicts in Texas to win such legal challenges in state or federal courts. It is almost unheard of for parole officials to be held liable for official omissions. State parole director Stuart Jenkins, a second defendant in the high-profile case, was not held liable.
At a time when several similar lawsuits are pending against state parole officials, attorneys have argued that a win by Graham could force new hearings in perhaps thousands of parole cases in which offenders were classified as sex offenders without proper hearings. Such a finding can bring more stringent limitations on their freedom.
"This should send a message to the parole board that their arrogance not to change their policy won't work any longer, that constitutional rights matter in how they do their business," said William Habern, a noted parole-law attorney from Riverside who represents Graham.
Owens and her attorneys left the courtroom after the verdict without commenting. Jenkins declined to comment, as did his attorneys.
It's pretty darn rare, and quite astonishing, for parole board chair Rissie Owens to be held personally liable in such a case - that implies that she was acting outside the legal strictures of her official capacity when she violated the plaintiff's rights. Owens' attorneys argued she shouldn't be liable because she was following the advice of TDCJ attorneys, but Sparks didn't care because he'd already ordered hearings in the same case on two different occasions and Owens defied him. Thus TDCJ's legal advice did not shield her from personal liability because they were advising her to ignore an order from the federal court.
That also tells us something about the attitudes of legal counsel at TDCJ, doesn't it? They advised Owens to take a course of action so blatantly unconstitutional and in violation of federal court orders that she came to be held individually liable! Yikes!
With thousands more ex-cons similarly situated, I'm betting the parole board changes its policies ASAP rather than Rissie Owens risking similar verdicts that could potentially rack up millions of dollars if they all came out like this case.
It'll be easy enough to initiate hearings going forward when future inmates are up for parole, but what happens with all those who've already been released and assigned sex offender registration but were never convicted of a sex crime? It seems like those rulings now have to be revisited. What a mountainous logistical and practical mess!
Congrats to attorney Bill Habern and his team on a significant win, and a sound legal ass kicking.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Judiciary, Parole, sex offender registration, TDCJ
Jury says state officials violated parolee's right to hearing
Parole board chair found liable for $21,000 in damages.
By Mike Ward
An Austin federal jury on Thursday found that two top state parole
officials violated the constitutional rights of an ex-convict who was
denied a required hearing for 576 days.
Jurors also held Board of Pardon and Paroles Chairman Rissie Owens
liable for $21,250 in damages and awarded Curtis Ray Graham
attorney's fees that are expected to top $100,000.
The verdict came after an unusually contentious trial presided over
by U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, who in August had declared a
mistrial in the case and who earlier this week fined an assistant
attorney general for disregarding his warnings about making
prejudicial comments in front of jurors.
Graham sued the parole board after he was classified as a sex
offender even though he was never convicted of a sex crime. He was
arrested on aggravated rape charges in the 1980s, and parole
officials used that as a basis for classifying him as a sex offender
five years after he had been released on parole.
Graham alleged he was never allowed to review evidence against him
before the parole board made its decision in December 2007, despite
several federal court orders requiring such hearings.
It is rare for ex-convicts in Texas to win such legal challenges in
state or federal courts. It is almost unheard of for parole officials
to be held liable for official omissions. State parole director
Stuart Jenkins, a second defendant in the high-profile case, was not
held liable.
At a time when several similar lawsuits are pending against state
parole officials, attorneys have argued that a win by Graham could
force new hearings in perhaps thousands of parole cases in which
offenders were classified as sex offenders without proper hearings.
Such a finding can bring more stringent limitations on their freedom.
"This should send a message to the parole board that their arrogance
not to change their policy won't work any longer, that constitutional
rights matter in how they do their business," said William Habern, a
noted parole-law attorney from Riverside who represents Graham.
Owens and her attorneys left the courtroom after the verdict without
commenting. Jenkins declined to comment, as did his attorneys.
"I feel that I have been vindicated," said Graham, a minister who
operates an auto detailing business in Athens, in East Texas. He has
been on parole since 2003, after serving prison time on charges of
attempted murder.
Graham received a hearing in early August after Sparks ordered it.
It did not change the outcome in his case, but Graham's attorneys say
it did not comply with the judge's order to make an official finding
that Graham was a continuing threat to society.
Defense attorneys insisted that Owens and Jenkins had followed
procedures in effect at the time and that the officials believed the
process was constitutional because it had been reviewed by agency
attorneys. They should not be held liable for doing what they thought
was right, their attorneys argued — even though Sparks himself had
twice ordered that Graham receive a due-process hearing on his case.
The trial started with a bang Monday, with Sparks repeatedly warning
Jenkins' attorney, Assistant Attorney General Kim Coogan, to limit
her remarks about Graham's criminal history.
Sparks cited her for contempt for remarks at an August hearing and
had declared a mistrial last month after he vented his disgust with
the state's lawyers several times.
At one point, with jurors sent out of the courtroom for the umpteenth
time by an increasingly irritated Sparks, he pointedly warned the
attorneys they were irritating the jury.
"A sixth-grader who's not doing well in school, who's a C student,
can look at these undisputed facts and make a determination that due
process was not followed," the judge said at another point in the
trial. "The only thing we know in this case is there were no
(required) hearings and that for over a year and two-thirds that
nothing was done. Ten minutes. That's all it would have taken to hold
a hearing."
On Monday, after Coogan noted while questioning a witness that an
evaluation of Graham had diagnosed him as "a psychopath," Sparks
fined her $500 for "deliberately and intentionally injecting
prejudicial" information into testimony, despite his repeated earlier
warnings.
She later paid the fine with a check from the attorney general's office.
In closing arguments Thursday, Coogan set Sparks off again,
suggesting that jurors should disregard the "mumbo jumbo"
instructions that Sparks was giving the jury.
Sparks exploded, hinting that he had only one other remedy: jail.
But after the verdict, he took no action against her, opting instead
for a later hearing to address the issue.
Coogan referred a reporter to Attorney General Greg Abbott's press
office, where spokesman Jerry Strickland responded, "We are reviewing
the order, nothing further."
mward@statesman.com
Jury says state officials violated parolee's right to hearing
Parole case verdict: Rights violated
By Mike Ward
After four hours’ deliberation, an Austin federal jury this afternoon found two top parole officials guilty of violating the constitutional rights of an ex-convict who was denied a required hearing for 576 days.
Jurors held Board of Pardon and Paroles Chairman Rissie Owens personally liable for some of the $21,250 in damages — plus attorneys fees that are expected to top $100,000 — that were sustained by Curtis Ray Graham, who sued after he was classified as a sex offender even though he was never convicted of a sex crime. He was arrested for aggravated rape in the 1980s.
The State of Texas would have to pay part of the verdict, which is expected to be appealed.
Graham testified he was never allowed to review evidence against him before the parole board made its decision in December 2007, despited several federal court orders requiring it.
State parole director Stuart Jenkins was not held personally liable.
It is rare for ex-convicts to win such legal challenges in state of federal courts. It is almost unheard of for state parole officials to be held personally liable for official omissions.
And at a time when several similar lawsuits are pending against state parole officials, attorneys have argued that a win by Graham could force new hearings in perhaps thousands of parole cases where offenders were classified as sex offenders — with more stringent limitations on their freedom — without proper hearings.
“This should send a message to the parole board that their arrogance not to change their policy won’t work any longer, that constitutional rights matter in how they do their business,” said William Habern, a noted parole-law attorney from Riverside who represents Graham.
Owens left the courtroom after the verdict without comment. Jenkins declined comment, as did his attorneys.
“I feel that I have been vindicated,” said Graham, a minister who operates an auto detailing business in Athens, in East Texas. He has been on parole since 2003, after serving prison time on charges of attempted murder.
Richard Gladden, one of his attorneys, said the verdict is significant “because it puts parole authorities in this state on notice that their procedure used in many other cases, perhaps thousands, is unconstitutional.
“My guess is the court clerk’s office is going to be flooded now with other parolees filing suits on how their cases were handled,” he said. “But the state has no one to blame but itself. They have been on notice for some time that this denial of due process was unconstitutional.”
Defense attorneys insisted that Owens and Jenkins had followed procedures in effect at the time that they believes were constitutional because they had been reviewed by agency attorneys. Neither of them should be held liable for doing what they thought was right, their attorneys argued — even though Sparks himself had twice ordered that Graham receive a due-process hearing on his case.
The trial had started with a bang on Monday, with U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks repeatedly warning Jenkins’ attorney, Assistant Attorney General Kim Coogan, to limit her remarks about Graham’s past criminal history.
Sparks cited her for contempt for remarks at an August hearing and had declared a mistrial last month after he vented his disgust with defense lawyers several times.
At one point, with the jury ushered out for the upteenth time by an increasingly irritated Sparks, he pointedly warned the defense attorneys they were irritating the jury.
“A sixth-grader whose not doing well in school, whose a C student, can look at these undisputed facts and make a determination that due process was not followed,” the judge said at another point in the trial, chewing again on attorneys with the jury out of the courtroom. “The only thing we know in this case is there were no (required) hearings and that for over a year and two-thirds that nothing was done. Ten minutes. That’s all it would have taken to hold a hearing.”
On Monday afternoon, after Coogan noted while questioning a witness that an evaluation of Graham had diagnosed him as “a psychopath,” Sparks fined her $500 for “deliberately and intentionally injected prejudicial” information into testimony, despite his repeated earlier warnings.
She later paid the fine with a check from the Attorney General’s Office.
Then, in a bizarre twist, Owens’ attorney, Assistant Attorney General Bruce Garcia, asked Sparks to declare a mistrial based on Coogan’s comments.
“Are you trying to get a mistrial?” Sparks asked Coogan. “Your conduct today has prejudiced them (Owens and Jenkins) in the eyes of the jury.”
Even so, he denied the mistrial request.
In closing arguments this morning, Coogan set Sparks off again, reportedly suggesting that jurors should disregard the “mumbo jumbo” jury instructions that Sparks was giving the jury.
Sparks exploded, hinting that he had only one other remedy: jail. But after the verdict, he took no action against her, opting instead for a hearing in coming days when he will address the issue.
Get more Legislative coverage inside the Virtual Capitol
Categories: Criminal justice
Parole case verdict: Rights violated
Prison release is the first surprise of many
Paroled after three decades in prison for capital murder, Michael
Eubanks is now reconnecting with a family he barely knew.
By CINDY HORSWELL
When Michael Eubanks was convicted of capital murder in 1978 and
given a life sentence, his hair was as flaming red as his temper.
The 20-year-old from Houston got into prison fights daily. His first
year he was even thrown into solitary confinement for organizing what
officials called a mutiny.
After all, he never expected to make it out of prison alive. Nobody
cared what happened to him. He didn't know his birth parents and had
burned bridges with his adopted ones. He saw his chances for parole
as “slim to none.”
Yet, after three decades in a 6-foot-by-9-foot cell, he felt he had
mellowed like his strawberry-blond hair.
He's now 52. He earned a college degree behind bars and became a
master leather craftsman.
Still, since becoming eligible for parole in 1997, Eubanks'
application had been rejected five times. In Texas, parole for
capital murder is next to impossible. Again he pensively waited this
summer to learn his fate. He didn't feel anything like the person who
made prison his home, never expecting to rejoin society.
• • • •
Eubanks always knew he was adopted at 6 months, but he never knew
why. His mother, Faye, would only say, “You don't need to know.”
So he pushed his questions aside while growing up with three brothers
in Lubbock.
His father, a machinist, was a good provider. They lived on tree-
lined streets in nice brick homes.
Yet the family moved around like tumbleweeds in Lubbock, forcing
Eubanks to adjust to six different schools.
At that time, he was more mischievous than his brothers, but he never
slipped into serious trouble — until his 15th birthday when his
family relocated to Denver and then Houston.
In Houston, Eubanks once again attended multiple schools. He felt
detached from his classes and dropped out in 10th grade.
“I was real rebellious,” he said. “Whenever I argued with my parents
about hair length or smoking, my answer was to leave. I was a
teenager with a motorcycle and wanted freedom. I lived for the moment.”
Eventually, he began hanging out with bikers such as the Highway
Demons or Conquistadors. His experimentation with drugs grew to
include heroin.
Soon he was stealing from his parents, robbing small stores and
running drugs coast to coast.
At one point before the murder, he almost jumped off his train ride
to self-destruction. He had been sentenced to his only other stint in
prison for stealing a souped-up El Camino in 1975.
He'd been locked up a year and got paroled on his 19th birthday.
With his parents' help, he got a new truck and machinist job and
stayed clean for four months, but then those familiar arguments arose
over his hair length and curfew. He took off on his own once more. It
was a big mistake.
• • • •
At a local pool hall, he met up with old friends from the drug scene
and soon was immersed in a narcotic haze.
On Oct. 2, 1977, the 20-year-old Eubanks ran out of drugs and money
while partying. So he and a 16-year-old friend decided to replenish
their supply by burglarizing the home of an apartment maintenance man
in Houston that the teen knew. They found only $45, a small marijuana
stash and a few items, but the racket woke up the apartment owner,
Larry Teague, who had been asleep.
Eubanks, armed with a sledgehammer, struck Teague and then strangled
him with a leather bullwhip taken from the wall.
“I panicked. (Teague) weighed 50 pounds more than me,” Eubanks said.
“I felt if he got to me that I'd be in trouble.”
Eubanks and his teenage accomplice, Michael Pittman, were arrested
within three days. Pittman testified against Eubanks for a reduced 15-
year sentence.
Eubanks' girlfriend was pregnant, but their son wasn't born until
after Eubanks was jailed for the murder. He only got one chance to
hold the infant before he was whisked away.
Although thankful for not receiving the death penalty, Eubanks told
his girlfriend to forget about him. “You need to focus on the baby,”
he said. “I'm never getting out of here.”
• • • •
When Eubanks arrived at the Eastham Unit north of Huntsville in 1978,
his cellmate told him, “This is the end of the world.”
It didn't take long for Eubanks to make a name for himself.
He fought so often he was placed on the prison boxing team. He then
helped organize a “work strike” in support of prison reform. That
landed him in solitary.
His heart was hardened. None of his adopted family members visited
him in prison.
His outlook changed gradually as years passed, beginning when he bet
a pound of coffee that he could earn his high school diploma. He did
it, and he went on to earn his associate's degree from Lee College in
1984 and his bachelor's in humanities from University of Houston-
Clear Lake through correspondence classes in 1999.
He became a peer health educator, instructing inmates on tuberculosis
and AIDS.
“Through all this, I found myself hanging around different people who
weren't as wild,” he said. “Many were Christians, whose lives seemed
smoother, with less uncertainty and anger.”
So when a friend gave him his first Bible, he read it from cover to
cover.
He eventually asked his mentor, Rabbi Jim Pratt, to pray with him
that the man he killed might somehow know his deep regret. None of
the victim's relatives had attended the trial, and Eubanks knows no
way to find them.
“Saying you're sorry isn't enough,” he said. “I did something for
which there is no excuse.”
He had been eligible for parole since 1997 — but now, despite five
rejections, he held onto a glimmer of hope that he might just get
that second chance.
And then he got word that his name made the list of those to be
paroled in July once he became the first capital murderer to complete
a pre-release program at aChristian prison in Sugar Land. Founded in
1997, the unit requires inmates who volunteer to go there to attend
Bible studies as well as learn about life skills and substance abuse.
Once he learned he won his freedom, he sat down and cried.
He had barely squeaked past with the necessary five of seven votes
from the state's parole board. Harris County prosecutors sent a
letter of protest based on the “sheer brutality of the crime.”
Family members of his murder victim could not be reached for comment,
but the Houston mayor's crime victim advocate, Andy Khan, found
Eubanks' release “surreal,” believing anyone committing such an
insidious act should remain imprisoned until he dies. In the past 14
years, nearly 2,000 capital murderers serving life sentences have
been eligible for parole in Texas, but only 3 percent made it,
records show.
• • • •
The granting of Eubanks' parole was his first surprise.
One of his Christian exit courses was taught by former district
Attorney Carol Vance, who was not only the namesake of the Sugar Land
unit but also a prosecutor who helped send Eubanks to prison.
“I recognized him the moment he walked in the room,” Eubanks said. “I
once hated him with a passion, but now I admire him.”
Although Vance said he's been conned before, he said he would trust
Eubanks as his next-door neighbor.
Upon his release, he moved to the Isaiah House, a halfway house in
northeast Houston. He landed a job quickly, working as sales manager
for an electric sign company.
However, the most amazing development has been finding his biological
family.
He went to an address in Conroe that was the last known address for
one of his adopted brothers. He spoke to an 80-year-old white-haired
woman through a locked gate whom he didn't recognize at first, but
she turned out to be his adopted mother, Faye.
“I want to apologize for the way I put you through hell,” he told her.
He hoped to restore their relationship, but the next day she called
to say she wasn't ready for that yet.
At the same time, she did confirm that his biological mother was her
sister — whom he had known as “Aunt Betty” — and that she was living
in Baytown.
He then learned the mystery behind his adoption. Betty Brown released
him to her sister to save his life because he was so scrawny,
weighing only 8 pounds at six months.
Brown had been recently divorced and could not afford medical care.
Tests eventually revealed that Eubanks was starving because of his
allergy to milk. He was switched to coconut milk and thrived.
Eubanks also learned that Brown's son Warren Gable was his brother.
Her daughter, Brenda Harris, was his half-sister. While they'd
visited together when Eubanks lived in Lubbock, he had thought of
them as his aunt and cousins.
They recently arranged to meet again at Gable's home near Brenham.
When Brown saw her son again after all these years, she ran to hug him.
“I was so glad that I forgot that he had a bad past,” she said. “I
don't know what I'm stepping into, but I feel like my sister has
given him back to me, and I want my son to have a second chance.”
Eubanks blinked back tears at the reunion, especially when they
surprised him with a cake in honor of his birthday that month.
He was also overwhelmed when he was later reunited with his only son,
Michael Small, now 31, of Katy. He's a U.S. Army Reserve staff
sergeant who recently returned from Afghanistan.
“He turned out so good,” Eubanks said.
cindy.horswell@chron.com
EDITORIAL: CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Texas parole system needs overhaul
EDITORIAL BOARD
Once again, folks in a courthouse are addressing a problem that folks
in the statehouse should have addressed long ago.
A cloud long has hung over the secretive, overburdened system by
which Texas decides who stays in prison, who is released and who
returns.
As with anything dealing with crime and punishment in Texas, the
numbers are staggering. The Board of Pardons and Paroles considered
more than 74,800 cases last year. About a third of the reviews
resulted in releases.
All were handled in secrecy by overworked folks working with files
riddled with more errors than anything this important should include.
The American-Statesman's Mike Ward, who has been covering and
uncovering problems in the state's criminal justice system for 20
years, reported this week that four federal cases in the past two
years have spotlighted troubling questions about the state parole
system.
Still pending are at least 12 other cases challenging the system.
The questions involve the legality of parole restrictions and the
unnecessarily secretive process for making parole decisions that can
affect us all.
"We have been advised by attorney after attorney after attorney that
it is correct," Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles, said of the process.
Court after court after court might be about to tell the board
something other than it has heard from attorney after attorney after
attorney.
And sometimes even things that are correct and legal might not be
right. By law, parole proceedings must be secret. The law is wrong.
The secrecy extends to the files used to make parole decisions.
Inmates do not get to review them for possible errors, of which, Ward
reported, there are many.
Before trial, defense lawyers have the right to see what is going to
be used against their clients. Why not the same rules in the parole
process?
In addition to drawing fire from without, the system has sparked
questions from within. Bert Reyna, who served on the board until
2004, said the problems are broad.
"It's horrible, a totally unbelievable system that is not working
right," he told the American-Statesman, pointing to the lack of a
system for culling out mistakes in files.
In addition to the lack of a system, there is a lack of time.
"You have to move cases," said former board member Lynn Brown. "There
are so many that have to be voted each week. If you were out for a
few days, you could get backed up where you couldn't even get in your
office (because) there would be so many files there waiting to be
voted."
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks did the math in an August order
stemming from an inmate's challenge of the system:
"The testimony established it is common practice for 30 to 40 cases
to be reviewed in one work day — an amount that indicates each review
takes approximately 12 minutes, assuming the commissioners conduct an
uninterrupted eight-hour workday."
It is a system that is — and long has been — overdue for top-to-
bottom review. As is too often the case with state government in
Texas, it's being done now — piece by piece — in courtrooms.
That's too bad, because the evidence is clear: Texas' parole system
is broken. Everybody running for state office next year should be
forced to talk about what they'd do about it.
Find this article at:
August 31, 2009
Sam Sparks v. Rissie Owens: Federal judge may unmask secretive parole process
The Austin Statesman's Mike Ward brings word ("Court cases forcing change at parole agency," Aug. 31) of a recent clash between US District Judge Sam Sparks and an attorney from the Board of Pardons and Parole:
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks had heard enough. After several days of listening to attorneys for the State of Texas defend the state parole board's operations, he became exasperated by the testimony of a parole board lawyer.
"The lady is wrong. She is stating issues of the law that are wrong," he told the jury.
The rare display of judicial pique resulted in a mistrial after state lawyers objected that his remarks could have improperly influenced jurors. But Sparks had already made it clear that he had serious questions about whether parole board policies violate a prisoner's right to due process.
Sparks is not the first judge to make such findings. In three other cases in two years, Austin federal judges have questioned the legality of the state's policies for placing restrictions on parolees, particularly sex offenders, who face some of the strictest conditions on their parole. Across Texas, parole officials said, more than a dozen other lawsuits on the issue are pending.
The court cases have highlighted criticism of the parole board for not taking time to adequately review parole cases, for operating in secret, for not detecting errors in paperwork and for placing conditions on parolees that are not justified by the evidence. Although most of the cases so far have dealt with sex offenders, observers say that changing the rules for those cases could open the door to broader changes, including more openness.
RELATED: Federal judge: Parole board may have improperly labeled thousands as sex offenders.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Judiciary, Parole, TDCJ
Court cases forcing change at Texas parole agency
U.S. judges question legality of practices they say violate due
process rights of prisoners.
By Mike Ward
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks had heard enough. After several days
of listening to attorneys for the State of Texas defend the state
parole board's operations, he became exasperated by the testimony of
a parole board lawyer.
"The lady is wrong. She is stating issues of the law that are wrong,"
he told the jury.
The rare display of judicial pique resulted in a mistrial after state
lawyers objected that his remarks could have improperly influenced
jurors. But Sparks had already made it clear that he had serious
questions about whether parole board policies violate a prisoner's
right to due process.
Sparks is not the first judge to make such findings. In three other
cases in two years, Austin federal judges have questioned the
legality of the state's policies for placing restrictions on
parolees, particularly sex offenders, who face some of the strictest
conditions on their parole. Across Texas, parole officials said, more
than a dozen other lawsuits on the issue are pending.
The court cases have highlighted criticism of the parole board for
not taking time to adequately review parole cases, for operating in
secret, for not detecting errors in paperwork and for placing
conditions on parolees that are not justified by the evidence.
Although most of the cases so far have dealt with sex offenders,
observers say that changing the rules for those cases could open the
door to broader changes, including more openness.
Although most Texans probably find it hard to sympathize with red-
tape travails of convicted felons, a growing chorus of former and
current parole officials agree that systemic troubles that have
nettled Texas' secretive system for decades seem to be coming to a head.
"This is all on a collision course," said Scott Medlock, director of
the prisoner rights program for the Austin-based Texas Civil Rights
Project. "Three federal judges and two appellate courts have told
them the system has to change ... but the state's litigation strategy
is that the (5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) will bail them out. I
don't think so."
For their part, state parole officials say the current process is
constitutional.
"We have been advised by attorney after attorney after attorney that
it is correct," said Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Texas Board of
Pardons and Paroles.
Even so, some officials on both sides concede that some change
appears to be coming.
In recent months, parole officials changed their procedure that
listed parolees as sex offenders and placed restrictions on their
activities once they were released — even if they had never been
convicted of a sex crime — to allow inmates to see state-ordered
evaluation reports. They have also been ordered to determine in each
case whether the parolee constitutes a continuing threat to society
because of a "lack of sexual control," a move that, if adopted for
all sex-offender cases, promises to bring additional paperwork and
reviews.
"It doesn't appear to be a matter of if the process will change; it's
now a matter of when," said Bill Habern, a Huntsville parole attorney
who has been battling for years for such changes to the system. "I
didn't used to be able to say that. We now have federal courts
mandating this (due process in some cases)."
Even so, parole officials have remained mum on what changes, if any,
they are contemplating, citing the ongoing litigation. They also
insist that their work may be misunderstood because of 1970s-era
state laws that mandate secrecy, much more so than in other states.
In Texas, convicts are not even allowed to see their own files and,
until recently, could not see documents to which they had to respond
as the parole board considered their release.
The parole board reviews tens of thousands of cases each year of
convicts who are eligible for parole. It also decides what conditions
to attach to paroles, revokes parole of convicts who have violated
those restrictions and rules on requests for clemency and pardons.
Two former parole board members say they see problems with the way
the agency operates.
"It's horrible, a totally unbelievable system that is not working
right," said former parole board member Bert Reyna, who left the
panel in 2004.
For example, he said, case summary reports should be made available
to inmates and their attorneys.
"There are too many mistakes in those files that are never caught,
because there are currently no checks and balances in the system,"
Reyna said.
In one case, he recalled, an inmate was listed as having killed
another man, without any details, when in fact he had gunned down a
federal probation officer outside the Laredo courthouse — making it a
much more significant crime.
In another case, an inmate was listed as having been involved in
human smuggling and other crimes when he had no such convictions.
"That information was about another inmate and somehow got in the
wrong file," Reyna said. "I can't tell you how many times, when I
checked the facts in those case summaries, the information was wrong."
Then, too, say Reyna and Lynn Brown, who served on the state parole
board from 1997 to 2004, the paperwork load facing the board
encourages decisions without a full review of convicts' files.
Even though some convicts' files have thousands of pages, Sparks
estimated that board members review and approve parole conditions for
some of the worst offenders once every 12 minutes — assuming they
take no break for lunch and work an eight-hour day. Former and
current board members say it's probably less than that.
In fact, in 1999 when the Austin American-Statesman was allowed to
watch parole decisions being made, in the first public access to the
inner sanctum, they approved one every seven minutes — one every four
minutes once a reporter stopped asking questions.
"You have to move cases," Brown said. "There are so many that have to
be voted each week. If you were out for a few days, you could get
backed up where you couldn't even get in your office (because) there
would be so many files there waiting to be voted."
Owens and other parole board members have insisted in court testimony
that they spend an appropriate amount of time reviewing and voting on
the more than 74,800 paroles they considered last year. Just over
23,000 paroles were approved in 2008, nearly 31 percent.
As far as mistakes in the files, parole officials insist they err on
the side of public safety and do not vote to release convicts who are
dangerous or pose a threat.
Others have criticized the parole board for having to vote on cases a
second time because members missed important information in the files
and failed to impose conditions for parole, such as requiring drunken
drivers not to drive or sex offenders to stay away from parks and
schools.
"There are hundreds of cases every month that have to be voted again
because the board didn't impose the conditions they should have,
because they didn't read the files," said Sandra Pickell, who retired
last year as an assistant director of review and release processing
for the state's parole division that processes paperwork for the
parole board.
Despite the ongoing legal challenges and complaints, parole officials
defend the system, noting that any system this large — Texas has the
second-highest prison population in the nation — will have some
problems.
Betty Wells, the parole board's general counsel, said any changes
made so far to the system have applied only to specific cases, as
ordered by a court.
mward@statesman.com
Find this article at:
August 16, 2009
Probation numbers expanded even more than prisons
These categories cost taxpayers more money as you descend the Y axis from top to bottom. Probation costs the least per offender and prison the most, thus naturally probation is the punishment used the most often. Parole is a function of the cost of incarceration and physical limits on the number of prisoners the state can reasonably stuff in a box. However, expansion of probation and parole populations also contribute to boosting the number of prisoners because of high revocation rates, particularly for drug offenders.
This explains the crux of Texas' 2007 probation reforms and why they've been so effective so soon at reducing the state's incarceration rate, even as crime has fallen. The statute straight-up reduced maximum probation terms for many offenses to just five years (down from ten), and allowed judges to terminate probation early for probationers who demonstrate good conduct and complete other terms of their supervision. Fewer people on probation means fewer people get revoked, which on the margins reduced pressure on the prison system overall enough to forestall the immediate need for new construction.
At the time we could say the tactics were "evidence based," but a leap of faith was still required - nobody knew exactly what would happen.
Today, Texas can say these methods have worked in the real world with few of the much-ballyhooed ill effects on safety that critics stridently predicted. Indeed, the legislation arguably contributes to public safety by giving offenders incentives to earn their way off probation early through good behavior.
Since we've seen the tactic can work without increasing crime - indeed, now that Whitmire and Madden's 2007 reform legislation has come to be viewed as a national model - the Texas Lege should go back in 2011 and finish the job, adding the offense categories which were approved by the Senate but stripped out of the later-vetoed legislation by the House in 2005. The most vocally opposed legislators are mostly gone now, and there's plenty of evidence to justify expading the use of shorter, stronger probation more broadly.
Posted by; Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Parole, Probation, TDCJ
August 12, 2009
Federal judge: Parole board may have improperly labeled thousands as 'sex offenders'
While I was out of town last week, federal District Judge Sam Sparks issued an important ruling criticizing the secretive process by which the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole makes decisions about release conditions for sex offenders.
Here's how the story by Mike Ward began in Friday's Austin Statesman:
A federal judge on Thursday issued a stern rebuke to state corrections officials for the way they classify some parolees as sex offenders even though the defendants have never been convicted of sex crimes.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks also voiced frustration with state parole officials for ignoring earlier court decisions and a previous directive by him and ordered the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to review whether to leave parolee Ray Curtis Graham on sex offender restrictions.
"It's time for the parole division and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop being defensive and start trying not to use technical defenses," Sparks said, in ruling that the restrictions were not imposed on Graham legally and that parole officials ignored a subsequent court warning about the deficiency.
"The undisputed evidence established no official involved in the ... process has ever made the necessary finding that Mr. Graham constituted a threat to society by his lack of sexual control."
In January 2008, Sparks warned the parole board that he had serious concerns about their policy on imposing restrictions on some parolees. For Graham, that meant requiring him to undergo sex-abuse therapy and barring him from becoming a minister and going to church, among other things.
In a parole system known for its secrecy — decisions are usually made behind closed doors, and most parole files are not public record — Thursday's development marked a rare crack in that armor, although not the first. In three other cases in two years, Austin federal judges have questioned the legality of the state's policy by which restrictions are placed on parolees.
Across Texas, parole officials said, more than a dozen other lawsuits on the issue are pending.
While the case involved only Graham, Sparks said he believes the parole board has illegally placed restrictions on perhaps thousands of parolees who have been classified as sex offenders.
It sounds like Judge Sparks is fed up and about to get serious with the Board of Pardons and Parole if they don't soon change these policies. Congrats in particular to Bill Habern, whose parole-focused firm out of Huntsville has been hammering away on these important due process claims for some time.
Posted by; Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Judiciary, Parole, sex crimes, sex offender registration, TDCJ
Judge scolds parole officials over sex offender classification
Sam Sparks stops trial after attorneys object to comments he made to jury about witness' testimony.
By Mike Ward
A federal judge on Thursday issued a stern rebuke to state corrections officials for the way they classify some parolees as sex offenders even though the defendants have never been convicted of sex crimes.
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks also voiced frustration with state parole officials for ignoring earlier court decisions and a previous directive by him and ordered the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to review whether to leave parolee Ray Curtis Graham on sex offender restrictions.
Sam Sparks Judge finds board's method 'troubling.'
"It's time for the parole division and the Board of Pardons and Paroles to stop being defensive and start trying not to use technical defenses," Sparks said, in ruling that the restrictions were not imposed on Graham legally and that parole officials ignored a subsequent court warning about the deficiency.
"The undisputed evidence established no official involved in the ... process has ever made the necessary finding that Mr. Graham constituted a threat to society by his lack of sexual control."
Sparks also declared a mistrial in the case after a week of testimony when attorneys for the state objected to comments he made to the jury about a witness' testimony.
Graham filed suit against parole officials after they officially listed him as a sex offender in December 2007 — without allowing him to see the results of a psychiatric evaluation they ordered him to undergo or to appear with his attorneys at a hearing at which the decision was made. Graham, who served time in prison for burglary and attempted murder, was never convicted of a sex crime. He was arrested for aggravated rape in 1982, but was never convicted.
In January 2008, Sparks warned the parole board that he had serious concerns about their policy on imposing restrictions on some parolees. For Graham, that meant requiring him to undergo sex-abuse therapy and barring him from becoming a minister and going to church, among other things.
In a parole system known for its secrecy — decisions are usually made behind closed doors, and most parole files are not public record — Thursday's development marked a rare crack in that armor, although not the first. In three other cases in two years, Austin federal judges have questioned the legality of the state's policy by which restrictions are placed on parolees. Across Texas, parole officials said, more than a dozen other lawsuits on the issue are pending.
"I think this case displays the arrogance of power that permeates the parole board," said Bill Habern, one of Graham's attorneys.
That view is strongly disputed by parole officials, who insist they are following the law as they interpret it.
Sparks stopped the trial Thursday morning after he contradicted a parole board witness on her testimony about federal court decisions.
After former parole board general counsel Laura McElroy testified that federal court decisions allowed the state's policy, Sparks had told jurors: "The lady is wrong ... the lady is wrong ... (McElroy) is stating issues of the law that are just wrong."
Assistant attorneys general representing the state complained that the judge's remarks might have prejudiced the six-member jury against Parole Board Chairwoman Rissie Owens and state parole director Stuart Jenkins.
"I was out of bounds," Sparks said of his remarks. But he also told parole officials they will have to answer for their actions in not giving Graham a hearing before they imposed the conditions.
While the case involved only Graham, Sparks said he believes the parole board has illegally placed restrictions on perhaps thousands of parolees who have been classified as sex offenders.
"I don't believe the Board of Pardons and Paroles can justify the imposition (of the condition) on any parolee," Sparks said, citing wording in the current policy that says the condition can be attached if an offender "could" pose a public safety threat.
"Everyone in this room is a possible risk to the public, including this federal judge," Sparks said, noting that restrictions had been placed on Graham even though the parole board never had made that finding in his case. "Actually, that's more troubling to the court than this individual case."
Until June, parole officials routinely refused to give offenders a copy of psychiatric evaluations and other documents and to provide face-to-face hearings. That policy was changed after Graham's case appeared headed to trial.
In testimony, parole officials said they specifically made the new policy retroactive to cover Graham and about 650 others without sex-crime convictions who have been placed under sex-offender rules.
Parole officials repeatedly insisted the state policies are legal — even though Sparks in January 2008 strongly hinted they were unconstitutional and ordered copies of his order delivered to state parole officials. Several testified they had either never received it or not read it.
Parole officials also said there was no legal requirement for a "live" hearing.
To provide offenders hearings, they said, could cost more than $1.7 million a year for additional staff.
Parole officials and a spokesman for the attorney general declined to comment on the case.
Judge scolds parole officials over sex offender classification
July 28, 2009
Tracking evidence-based probation practices in Travis County
Over the weekend I ran across this fine piece of journalism from the May/June issue of the Texas Association of Counties County magazine describing the details of Travis County's efforts to implement "evidence based" practices at its probation department.
The county saw reductions in recidivism, probation revocations and incarceration costs for both state prisoners and the county jail.
The National Institute of Corrections republished the story on their website, pairing it with an array of related documents about stronger probation systems.
Here's a notable excerpt from the County magazine story:
The experiment achieved positive results: because of its four-year effort, the county’s overall one-year recidivism rates dropped from 29 to 24 percent.
More recidivism-related outcomes:
Pre-experiment, 26 percent of low-risk offenders were re-arrested within one year; post-experiment, only 6 percent were re-arrested after one year. That is a 77 percent drop in low-risk offender recidivism.
Pre-experiment, 26 percent of those offenders were re-arrested within one year; post-experiment, only 13 percent were re-arrested within one year of their original offense. That is a 50 percent drop in medium-risk offender recidivism.
Pre-experiment, 34 percent of those offenders were re-arrested within one year; post-experiment, only 31 percent were re-arrested within one year. That is a 9 percent drop in high-risk offender recidivism.
Tony Fabelo, a criminal justice expert who worked closely with the department throughout the transition, said those numbers are significant at all levels.
“The biggest decline has been for the low and medium risk (offenders), which makes sense. The high-risk people are high risk.
They are very difficult to work with,” he said, adding that having fewer low- and medium-risk offenders on caseloads results in having more available resources geared toward offenders most likely to endanger public safety.
Recidivism wasn’t the only area in which the department saw beneficial results. The changes also resulted in the department reducing its overall felony revocations by almost 20 percent. Technical violations were reduced by 48 percent. According to the numbers:
Pre-experiment, in 2005, the county had 1,052 felony revocations; post-experiment, in 2008, the county had 846 felony revocations.
In 2005, the probation department filed 608 technical revocations; in 2008, that number dropped to just 318.
Only 3.4 percent of its felony offenders had their probation revoked in 2008 because of a technical violation, compared to 5.9 percent in 2005.
Based on all those figures, the Legislative Budget Board concluded that Travis County potentially saved the state $4,881,881 over the course of three years, just by avoiding those 290 technical revocations. According to state data, about 67 percent of those technical revocations would have lead to the person being sent to prison for an average of 16 months. Another 29 percent of revocations would have lead to an average of 10 months in a state jail.
The other 4 percent would have spent time in the Travis County Jail. Nagy estimates that the county saved approximately $386,736 in 2008 in jail housing costs. The county calculated that savings by comparing the amount of time probationers spent in jail pre-experiment and post-experiment. That time decreased from a total of 111,339 days in jail in 2007 to 95,225 days in 2008, a 14.5 percent drop.
The experiment was carefully documented throughout its duration, which resulted in a series of reports that can be found on the Travis County Adult Probation Web site.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Probation, Travis County
July 23, 2009
Expanding ranks of Texas lifers part of national trend
Texas has both life sentences which are eligible for parole (most of them) and also life without parole (LWOP). The latter in Texas is only a sentencing option in capital murder cases and as of 2008, just 71 Texans had received LWOP sentences, according to the report, while 8,558 offenders (6.1% of TDCJ's total inmate population) were serving life sentences in Texas adult prisons but will ultimately be eligible for parole.
"However," as the Sentencing Project correctly notes, "eligibility does not equate to release and, owing to the reticence of review boards and governors, it has become increasingly difficult for persons serving a life sentence to be released on parole."
Six states and the federal government have only LWOP sentences, says the Sentencing Project. The total number of people nationally serving life sentences quadrupled in the last 25 years, with just 34,000 total prisoners serving life sentences in 1984 and more than 140,000 in 2008.
Among Texas lifers, 43.5% are black, according to the report, 33.8% are white, and 22.0% are Hispanic. There are 422 juveniles mixed into the totals for Texas lifers - about one in 20 out of all life sentences. Three of those juveniles are sentenced to life without parole, but going forward that penalty was abolished for juveniles by the 81st Texas Legislature. Out of those 422, thirteen juvenile girls are serving life sentences.
Notably, California uses life sentences much more liberally than Texas, particularly for juveniles but really for everybody. In a prison system just a little larger than ours (serving a population that's 60% greater, it should be added), a whopping 20% of all California prisoners are serving life sentences compared to just 6.1% in Texas. Of the more than 34,000 lifers in California, 10.8% are in for LWOP.
Does anyone wonder why California is cutting prisoners loose because it can't afford to incarcerate them all?
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: LWOP, TDCJ
July 21, 2009
TDCJ: Paroling older offenders could save Texas $49 million per year
Thanks to the addition of billions in federal stimulus funds and a now-vanished revenue infusion from high oil prices last year, Texas was able to stave off the kind of serious state budget crunch in 2009 that's crippled California and put the pinch on dozens of other states. The effects on criminal justice in California have been extreme, from the Los Angeles Sheriff choosing not to pay DNA testing in rape cases to slashing prison guard salaries by ten percent, the Golden State is taking radical steps to stay within its budget.
By comparison, Texas prison guards got 3.5% raises this year in an effort to reduce understaffing and the state financed modest increases to diversion and treatment programs to keep from building more prisons. Looking forward, though, by 2011 most official estimates see Texas experiencing severe if delayed effects in the state budget from a slumping economy, meaning legislators will be faced with cutting the budget or dipping into the state's "Rainy Day Fund."
At that point, legislators will be looking for places to cut, and this morning I ran across a brief, two-page report (pdf) on the TDCJ publications page that tells them how to save $49 million per year right off the bat. (It was published in December but I hadn't seen it before now and the Lege didn't act on the information this session.) According to the analysis, performed in response to HB 429 passed in 2007, The:
Aging of the offender population has a demonstrated impact on the resources of the health care system. Offenders age 55 and older access the health care delivery system at a much higher level and frequency than younger offenders.
Encounter data indicates that offenders aged 55 and over had a documented encounter with medical staff almost three (3) times as often as those under age 55. In terms of hospitalization, the older offenders were utilizing health care resources at a rate of more than four (4) times higher than the younger offenders. The 55 and older offenders comprise about 6.8% of the overall service population and yet account for more than 30.5% of the hospitalizations.
TDCJ incarcerated more than 10,950 offenders over the age of 55 as of Aug. 1, 2008, the agency reported; about 5,000 of them are not serving time for so-called "3g" (violent) offenses. (More than 60% of offenders in TDCJ's institutional division are eligible for parole, according to the agency's annual statistical report - pdf, p. 15). Paroling those offenders, said the agency, would save the state more than $20 million annually in off-site medical costs, at a minimum, as well as reduce the burden on internal TDCJ medical systems.
In addition, paroling 5,000 offenders would save money by allowing the state reduce its reliance on private prison contractors:
Based on the most recent LBB offender population projections ... a reduction of 5,000 incarcerated offenders could eliminate the need for contracted temporary capacity, currently 1,899 beds, reducing current agency expenditures by approximately $29 million annually.
So when Texas legislators start talking about budget cuts, TDCJ has identified $49 million per year the state could cut from the prison budget that should be discussed well before anyone starts talking about reducing staff pay.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Health, Parole, TDCJ
July 20, 2009
Probation officer screened job applicants for drug cartel
Yet another bribery case has cropped up involving a criminal justice worker on the Texas border with the arrest of federal probation officer Armando Mora last week in McAllen. Reports the American Chronicle ("Federal probation officer charged with drug trafficking and bribery," July 20):
According to allegations in the criminal complaint, Mora received bribe payments from members of a drug trafficking organization to provide sensitive and confidential information from government records. It is alleged before the drug trafficking organization considered hiring drivers for their tractor-trailers to transport its drug loads, it would provide personal information - full name, commercial driver's license number and date of birth - to Mora, who in turn would obtained confidential and sensitive information from government sources about whether the prospective driver was on probation or supervised release or had any outstanding arrest warrants. If Mora reported no such warrants or supervision, the drivers would be hired. On the other hand, the complaint alleges that on at least two occasions in May and June 2009, Mora allegedly advised the drug organization not to hire three drivers telling a member of the drug trafficking organization that two of the drivers were undercover agents and the third was one of his own supervisees and and an FBI informant. In June 2009, Mora is alleged to have received $5,000 from a member of the drug trafficking organization for providing the confidential information regarding the third driver.
Obviously ratting out undercover officers puts federal agents at risk. I also have a big problem with using probationers as drug informants, for reasons identified earlier this year by Bobby Frederick at the South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog:
If a person is trying to get clean or stay clean, they cannot repeatedly go into houses and make drug deals - sooner or later they will use and their recovery will be blown to bits. Many narcotics officers do not care if you stay clean or not - you are a tool that they use to do their job for them. Many narcotics officers do not care that you are placing yourself in danger - again, you are a tool that they require to make drug arrests. Rachel Hoffman's death in Florida, although tragic, was representative of the ethics problems that narcotics officers often ignore in their work and thankfully brought national attention to the problem.
There is a fundamental contradiction between policy goals when a probationer is used as a drug informant. Putting someone on probation instead of sending them to prison implies both that the court viewed them as not dangerous enough to require incarceration and also that they're capable of possible rehabilitation.
But if that person is sent back over and over into drug environments by the state, it's nigh on impossible to make the kind of clean break from reoffending and drug use that rehabilitation requires.
In this particular case, what kind of message does it send to learn that the FBI and federal probation officers knowingly encouraged an offender under federal supervision to apply for a job as a driver making drug shipments?
In the bigger public-policy picture, this example shows why anti-corruption efforts deserve greater priority in the enforcement battle against multinational drug cartels: One corrupt official can easily thwart the work of many, many others in the system, and too often that's exactly what happens. Americans tend to think of public corruption as more typically a Mexican problem, but we've seen far too many examples of corruption on the US-side of the border to take much comfort in such stereotypes.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Border Wars, bribery, drug policy, Probation, Snitching, USDOJ
June 20, 2009
Governor Perry's 2009 Criminal Justice Vetoe
No tinkering with parole mechanics
SB 1206 by Hinojosa/Edwards would have authorized TDCJ to release inmates when they'd completed conditions for parole specified by the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Perry vetoed the bill because he said it usurped the authority of the BPP. However, he put the onus for getting offenders out the door more quickly back on the parole board, declaring in the veto statement:
"But because I appreciate the goal of Senate Bill No. 1206 to not hold inmates longer than necessary, I am directing the Board and TDCJ to work together to ensure that offenders are not held for extended periods after successfully completing a rehabilitation program required by the Board as a condition for parole. They must set up procedures that provide for TDCJ to notify the Board of the successful completion of parole release requirements so that the Board may act to effect the release to parole."
May 13, 2009
Perkins' parole nomination scuttled!
What a shocking outcome: On Sen. Whitmire's motion, with Sen. John Carona's vocal, bipartisan support, the Senate rejected Shanda Perkins' nomination to the parole board on a 27-4 vote, calling her unqualified.
Whitmire said he respected Perkins but she should not be on the parole board, which literally considers matters of life and death. Texas has increased pay for the full-time slot, he said, to $95,000 per year to attract the most qualified candidates possible and she didn't fit the bill. He suggested the Governor appoint Perkins to a different slot, possibly a university regent.
Watch the debate here beginning at the 2:42:30 mark; here's initial AP coverage.
Senators Whitmire, Carona, and Shapleigh deserve huge credit for speaking out to oppose this nomination. I've never seen a vote quite like that!
MORE: From the Austin Statesman, where Mike Ward reports that "The four votes to confirm the nomination were Sens. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls; Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay; Mike Jackson, R-La Porte, chairman of the Nominations Committee, and Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound."
Several senators who voted for Perkins in the Nominations Committee actually changed their votes.
AND MORE: The Fort Worth Star-Telegram says, "It was the first time in decades that a gubernatorial appointee has been rejected on the Senate floor."
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: nominations, Parole
May 13, 2009
Parole board vacancy: Insert dildo joke here
(UPDATED) The full Texas Senate today will consider the nomination of Shanda Perkins, the anti-sex toy crusader from Burleson who Governor Perry has nominated to serve on the parole board despite having no apparent experience regarding criminal justice besides the effort to ban dildos from Johnson County. (I know, I know, it can't be done - they're indigenous.) The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later overturned Texas' statutory sex toy ban.
Perkins says her role in the sex-toy prosecution was overblown and she only passed around copies of the law she thought should be enforced and tried to pass a resolution to ban short skirts worn by her nemesis, the dildo saleswoman, to local Chamber of Commerce events. (A commenter on another blog noted that we've heard this song before.)
Normally sex toys don't come up much in the nominations process so at least her appointment has provided some comic relief, but for those whose lives will be affected by Perkins' decisions, it's no laughing matter. There's a time and a place for everything, including dildo jokes, but you'd think an appointment to the parole board wouldn't be one of them.
UPDATE: Who'da thought? Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman says her nomination appears to be in trouble:
“She appears to be toast. Burned toast,” said one senator.
By several reports, the Senate’s 12 Democrats are lined up to not confirm Perkins’ nomination and two Republicans said privately the are among several GOPers who also oppose it.
MORE: I'd have never anticipated this:
The Texas Senate has blocked 1 of Gov. Rick Perry's nominees to serve on the state board of pardons and parole over concerns she is unqualified for the job.
The 27-4 vote Wednesday to send the nomination of Shanda Perkins of Burleson back to committee was a resounding bipartisan rejection of the former banker.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: nominations, Parole
May 06, 2009
More disapprobation for Shanda Perkins nomination to parole board
I'm not the only one, apparently, dissatisfied with Shanda Perkins' nomination for the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole. Harold Cook at Letters from Texas vents that:
Yesterday, the nomination of Dr. Bryan Shaw came up, to continue as one of three commissioners over the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Most of the Senate Democrats opposed the confirmation, based on the silly notion that the state agency charged with protecting the environment should...well, you know...do a little of that from time to time.
During the course of that debate, Republican Senator Mike Jackson, who chairs the Senate Nominations Committee, the first stop for all these appointees, remarked in defense of Dr. Shaw that the Senate needs to look beyond policy differences, and instead cast their votes based on a particular appointee's qualifications, experience, and expertise.
Fair enough, Chairman Jackson. Let's talk about Shanda Perkins . Ms. Perkins is pending in Jackson 's Nominations Committee, as a Perry appointee to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. Her committee hearing is today.
What are Shanda Perkins' qualifications? Well, she led a revolt against sex toys.
Her holy quest to rid Planet Earth of the scourge of people doing whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes landed one woman in jail, and the whole mess ended up in Federal Court. The courts eventually ruled that Ms. Perkins' goal, and the law that goes with it, is unconstitutionally illegal.
Perkins' only other qualification for appointment by Perry seems to be that she was caught passing out anonymous fliers attacking Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison at Republican events.
So what's it gonna be, Mr. Chairman? Is the talent bar in Texas so low these days that we're going to entrust decisions, regarding who remains in prison and who is set free, to a political hack anti sex toy crusader who is unconcerned with the U.S. Constitution?
The appointment is an embarrassment.
The Senate Nominations Committee will consider Perkins' nomination at a meeting this aftenoon at 1 pm. or 30 minutes after the Senate adjourns in the Senate chamber.
UPDATE: The Senate Nominations Committee approved Perkins' nomination on a 4-1 vote, with Sen. Elliott Shapleigh the lone opponent. Unfair Park broke the news of the committee vote; see also brief coverage from AP.
MORE (5/7): From the Dallas News' Trail Blazers Blog:
When Shapleigh quizzed Perkins and three other Perry appointees to the board about their credentials, the other three cited advanced degrees, years of prison work and experience in state and local government. Perkins cited her experience as a Sunday school teacher and a church youth counselor.
AND MORE: Best coverage yet of the hearing from Jim Vertuno at AP who reports:
The ACLU sent Perry's office a letter Wednesday saying Perkins' has "no relevant qualifications for the position and no identifiable experience in the area of corrections policy" and her nomination should be withdrawn.
Perkins' approval "will fail to promote fairness on the parole board or confidence in the criminal justice system," the letter said.
And also this tidbit:
Shapleigh also asked how she would vote if there was new evidence that could show a death row inmate may be mentally disabled, which would prevent them from being executed.
"I would vote against," execution, Perkins said.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: nominations, Parole, Texas Legislature
Parole officer charged with bribery
By Tony Plohetski
Authorities have charged a Travis County parole officer with bribery after they said he offered to have a parolee’s ankle monitoring bracelet removed in exchange for $150.
Wayne George Johnson, 34, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the second-degree felony. His bail is set at $10,000.
According to an arrest affidavit, parolee Tyler Allen Nitsche, 27, made an outcry about the offer this month.
Investigators asked Nitsche, who was on parole on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Webb County, if he was willing to wear a recording device for a conversation with Johnson.
During an exchange, the affidavit said, Johnson accepted a partial payment from Nitsche and requested more money to remove the device.
Parole officer charged with bribery
April 25, 2009
Probation fees a sleeper issue, barrier to success of reforms
At a moment in history where more than 10% of adult Texans have outstanding arrest warrants, the ever growing array of increasingly unmanageable fines for low level offenses and fees for probationers is a mundane "sleeper" issue, one that may have profound implications in particular for how well the probation-centered de-incarceration reforms approved by the Texas Legislature in 2007 work in the long term.
This subject of onerous fees too seldom rises to a high enough priority level, I'm afraid, even on this blog. But with every new legislative session, probationers suffer from a death from a thousand cuts, and every new fee and fine makes it less likely they'll be able to successfully complete court-ordered community supervision.
The most egregious example is the Orwellian-named Driver Responsibility Program, especially the high fines for DWI offenders - it suffers about a 70% noncompliance rate! Similarly, rates of restitution payments are strikingly low in part because the amount of restitution expected from low-income defendants is frequently unrealistic in the first place.
Every two years in Texas, more nickel and dime fees are added onto probationers' plates until we've reached the point where, for many, it's unrealistic to expect them to pay. After all, most of these folks, carrying a criminal record, don't qualify for high paying jobs and a felony record precludes them from many occupations. It doesn't matter, though; the Lege just keeps tacking on fees.
I mention this after noticing a bunch of bills in this vein moving through the process, starting with one by Rep. Paula Piereson attaching a new $50 fee for probationers who are required to do community service. Similarly, version of Sen. Dan Patrick's DNA database expansion bill that passed out of the Senate includes a new $34 fee to cover the costs of processing DNA tests.
According to the criminal justice impact statement, HB 666 by Gutierrez "would increase the court cost on the conviction of certain intoxication and drug offenses from $50 to $60 and make it applicable to any offense classified as a Class B misdemeanor or higher that falls within specified offenses types, including assault, arson, robbery, burglary, theft, fraud, weapons, and intoxication."
A bill that passed out of the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee and is waiting in Calendars, HB 2389 by Hernandez lards on more fees for alcohol offenses, creating "a $50 breath alcohol testing program fee as a court cost for persons if convicted of one of seven Penal Code offenses: Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), Driving While Intoxicated with a Child Passenger, Flying While Intoxicated, Boating While Intoxicated, Assembling or Operating an Amusement Ride While Intoxicated, Intoxication Assault, or Intoxication Manslaughter. It would allow counties to retain $5 of each fee collected for administrative costs," according to the fiscal note.
Another bill that's out of committee makes mandatory use of "ignition interlocks" for all DWI probationers and makes them pay for the costs. A bill requiring electronic monitoring for registered sex offenders requires them all to pay for the equipment. Another bill that passed out of committee in the Senate would authorize arrest for someone who is able to pay for monitoring costs, in the view of the court, but fails to do so.
Maybe it sounds petty to complain about a $50 additional fee, but my real complaint is the overarching trend. We see more of these fees literally every session, and probationers already owe fines, court costs, probation department fees, restitution and can be required to pay for their own drug or alcohol treatment and testing. If they don't pay the mounting fees, fines and costs, they face revocation or at least an array of intermediate sanctions, none of which are themselves free to the taxpayers.
These costs partially explain why so many defendants actually choose jail over probation for many low-level offenses, even though it costs the taxpayers much more. When that happens, or if they're revoked to prison, the state all of a sudden must foot ALL their costs, so surely it makes sense to invest the much smaller amounts on the front end if it means not overburdening probationers with fees to the point they cannot succeed?
It won't happen in the 81st Legislature, but somewhere down the line - perhaps in an interim charge by one of the relevant committees - this issue needs to be studied in more detail and the issue of probation fees rationalized. If we as a society believe that police protection, criminal adjudication and the incarceration of people for crimes is a primary role of government, then we need to pay for those functions with tax dollars and stop larding on ever-higher pile of debts onto people who largely can't afford them.
You can't squeeze blood from a stone, the saying goes, and trying doesn't make us any safer. In fact, it can contribute to probationers' sense that the system is so slanted against their success they should just stop trying, contributing to despair and, ultimately, to recidivism.
Posted by; Gritsforbreakfast
Labels: Driver Responsibility Fee, fees, Probation
States urged to improve probation, parole programs
March 2, 2009
NEW YORK — The number of people on parole and probation across the United States has surged past 5 million, according to a new report which says financially struggling states can save money in the long run by investing in better supervision of these offenders.
The Pew Center on the States report, released Monday, says the number of people on probation or parole more than tripled to 5.1 million between 1982 and 2007. Including jail and prison inmates, the total population of the U.S. corrections system now exceeds 7.3 million — one of every 31 U.S. adults, it said.
The report also noted huge discrepancies among the states in regard to the total corrections population — one of every 13 adults in Georgia at one end of the scale, one of every 88 in New Hampshire at the other extreme.
The racial gap also was stark — one of every 11 black adults is under correctional supervision, one of every 27 Hispanic adults, one of every 45 white adults.
The report notes that construction of new prisons will be increasingly rare as most states grapple with budget crises.
It said improved community-supervisi on strategies represent one of the most feasible ways for states to limit corrections spending and reduce recidivism. "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste," said Susan Urahn, managing director of the Center on the States. "The economy opens a window of opportunity to do things that are not always easy to do."
At present, according to the report, prisons consume nearly 90 percent of state corrections spending, even though two-thirds of offenders under supervision are on parole or probation.
Costs per year for a prison inmate average nearly $29,000, while average costs for managing parolees and probationers range from $1,250 to $2,750 a year. Adam Gelb, director of Pew's Public Safety Performance Project, stressed that violent and incorrigible criminals need to be locked up, but contended that many prison inmates could be safely overseen in their communities at far lower cost.
"New community supervision strategies and technologies need to be strengthened and expanded, not scaled back," he said. "Cutting them may appear to save a few dollars, but it doesn't. It will fuel the cycle of more crime, more victims, more arrests, more prosecutions, and still more imprisonment."
Among the report's recommendations for strengthening community corrections: _Base intervention programs on sound research about what works to reduce recidivism.
_Use advances in supervision technology such as electronic monitoring and rapid-result alcohol and drug tests.
_Create incentives for offenders and supervision agencies to succeed, and monitor their performance.
_Impose swift, certain sanctions for offenders who break the rules of their release.
The report cited a probation program in Hawaii as a positive example.
Under that program, which offers extensive counseling and treatment, failure to comply with random drug tests, office visits and treatment requirements is met with immediate sanctions — typically a few days in jail. Participants have proven far less likely than others on probation to be arrested for new crimes and sent back to prison.
Arizona was praised for a law enacted last year that creates performance incentives for offenders and the county-based probation supervision system. For every month that an offender complies with the terms of supervision, the length of probation can be shortened by up to 20 days. Slip-ups result in a loss of the earned time.
Kansas has made headway in curbing its prison population by offering grants to community corrections programs that cut down on the high number of probation and parole rule-breakers being sent back to prison solely for such rule violations.
The Pew report says strong community supervision programs for low-risk offenders not only cost much less than incarceration but, when properly funded and managed, can cut recidivism by as much as 30 percent. That could be a huge boon to the states, which, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, spent a record $51.7 billion on corrections last fiscal year — up 300 percent over two decades.
The five states with the highest rate of adults under correctional supervision were Georgia, Idaho, Texas, Massachusetts and Ohio, the report said.
Those with lowest rates were New Hampshire, Maine, West Virginia, Utah and North Dakota.
According to Pew's figures, Idaho had 48,663 people on probation in 2007 — the key factor in its ranking. Idaho corrections officials said the figure was too high, based on their count of about 26,900 offenders on supervised probation, but they did not immediately provide figures on additional offenders on unsupervised probation.
Georgia, although only the ninth most populous state, had more people on probation in 2007 — 435,631 — than any other state, according to the report.
The state Department of Corrections said the number might be inflated by double-counting of some offenders, but it has previously acknowledged that its probation population is the highest per capita in the country.
One consequence, according to the department, is that Georgia probation officers have had a caseload far higher than the national average. Gelb said advanced technology could be used to improve supervision without necessarily hiring more personnel. For example, he said some states now allow parolees and probationers to periodically report to an ATM-like kiosk, rather than to a person in a state office.
In any case, said Gelb, states could double or triple the amount they spend supervising parolees and probationers, and still come out ahead financially if the result was a reduced prison population.
In Alaska, where construction is set to begin soon on a new medium-security prison, the corrections commissioner said he agreed with the thrust of the Pew report. "Confinement is the foundation of the system, but we are trying to move away from the philosophy that incarceration will solve the problem," said Joseph Schmidt.
"What we are hoping is that we don't grow our prison population to a point where we can't afford it."
States urged to improve probation, parole programs
On the Net:
February 19, 2009
Governor appoints anti-sex toy crusader to parole board
Normally, the Texas Senate rubber stamps the Governor's appointments to the Board of Pardons and Paroles, but one of Rick Perry's three appointees announced last week perhaps deserves closer vetting by the Senate. According to the Governor's press release:
Shanda G. Perkins of Burleson is a retired banking executive. She is a member of the United Way of Johnson County Board of Directors and Burleson Lions Club. She is also director of the Johnson County Chamber Summit, and is a member and past ambassador of the Burleson Chamber of Commerce. She also volunteered as a youth pastor, counselor and Sunday school teacher at Lighthouse Church. Perkins replaces Jose Aliseda of Beeville.
That doesn't explain, though, why she's being appointed to this slot. As far as I can tell, Mrs. Perkins' sole experience in the criminal justice realm stems from a personal morality crusade against the sale of sex toys in Johnson County that led to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals overturning Texas' law on the subject.
She's so tough on crime, in other words, she's tough on crimes the federal courts say cannot exist because they're acts protected by the First Amendment.
But Governor Rick Perry thinks she'll make fair decisions on the parole board?
The other two parole board members named were reappointed veterans, board chair Rissie Owens and Juanita Gonzalez of Round Rock. I frequently disagree with Rissie Owens, who as presiding officer exercises significant control over the board's direction, but I'd never say she's unqualified. In Mrs. Perkins' case, though, I fear the Governor is putting politics over what's best for the state's troubled prison system.
UPDATE: It turns out Mrs. Perkins has been busy lately distributing unsigned attack flyers against Kay Bailey Hutchison on behalf of Governor Perry claiming the senator and Barack Obama are aligned on abortion. The Star-Telegram' s Poli-Tex blog said, Perkins "described herself as a Tarrant and Johnson County chair for the Perry campaign."
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast at; Governor appoints anti-sex toy crusader to parole board
Labels: Governor, Parole, SCOTUS, sex crimes
Re-entry services for former inmates deserve support
Reported By; Ana Yañez-Correa, Men and women released from prison by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice get $50 and a bus ticket back to where they came from. For someone trying to start a new life, that isn't much. These people have served their time. A judge and a parole board have determined that they are ready to re-join society. For most, however, the days and weeks ahead will be their greatest struggle yet. On their first night out, they will need a place to sleep, but many landlords will refuse to rent to someone with a criminal record. Some public housing projects may reject them on the same grounds. Many will end up in temporary housing and homeless shelters, where they may be exposed to the problems they are trying to put behind them. One 2004 study found that parolees who lived in temporary shelters after release were more likely to end up re-incarcerated than those who had more stable housing. A person making a transition from prison to the community will quickly need to find a job that can make them self-sufficient. In Texas, however, they will face many barriers to finding skilled employment; those with felony records are barred from being licensed for 168 different professions, from electrician to manicurist. Even unskilled jobs may be hard to find, as employers conducting background checks often choose not to hire the formerly incarcerated. In the weeks and months after release, they will also have to contend with the lingering problems that took them to prison in the first place. One recent estimate held that 50 percent of the prison population suffers from mental illness. Drug addiction is another common problem. Nationally, about half of the prison population committed their crimes while under the direct influence of drugs. While people may be treated for mental health and drug problems while incarcerated, once they return to the community, those services become much harder to access. These problems are inextricably linked, and together they form a barrier to re-entry that some will find impossible to pass. Of the 70,000 people released from Texas prisons each year, about half will return. Faced with unemployment, homelessness, a lack of opportunities and untreated mental illness and drug problems, many will become desperate. In their desperation, they will offend again in a cycle of disappointment and failure all too familiar. According to the professionals who work most closely with released and paroled prisoners, the worst gap of all is the lack of coordination between those who do provide services to the recently released. While many good programs do exist, working alone and against great odds in communities across Texas, they need the state's support. Texas needs a Statewide Re-entry Council to ensure that parolees are given the tools they need to take responsibility for their lives, to become productive members of their communities and to fully re-enter society. Locally, the Austin/Travis County Reentry Roundtable is working to bring together volunteers and community organizations to assist formerly incarcerated persons in finding housing, employment and health services. Travis County is on the forefront of offering re- entry services, but local efforts need an investment by the state to continue their good work. If we truly believe in the promise of redemption and the hope of a second chance, we must support the released men and women who wish to make new lives for themselves, as well as the selfless professionals who work with them and the communities to which, ready or not, they will return. Yañez-Correa is executive director of the coalition, an advocacy organization based in Austin. Re-entry services for former inmates
Criminals, advocates say Texas parole restrictions unfair to low-level offenders
November 11, 2008 It's called Condition X: tough restrictions on the way some criminals, mostly paroled sex offenders, must live once they're out of prison. Condition X determines the minutiae of their daily lives – whether they can visit a school or attend church; whether they can live with their families or in an apartment with a swimming pool; whether they can access the Internet, work at a convenience store, even whom they can date or marry. But a growing number of offenders are fighting back against the strict limits, which they say are most often imposed without a fair hearing, and treat low-level offenders and violent predators alike. "I'm not at war trying to defend sex offenders," said attorney Bill Habern, who has scored several incremental victories in court against how Condition X is imposed. "I'm at war trying to protect our Constitution." The current system is unfair to low-level offenders such as young people who had consensual sex with minors, said Mary Sue Molnar, co- founder of Texas Voices, a new organization devoted to changing sex offender laws. Ms. Molnar's son was 22 when he had sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend. He received deferred adjudication but was sent to prison several months later when he was caught with drugs and alcohol. She worries how he'll cope with the Condition X restrictions he'll face upon release. "You're looking at a young man who, because the place of employment is listed on the [public] registration, cannot find or keep a job – which is one of his probation or parole conditions. "Where is he supposed to live? You're looking at a man who cannot come up with the money for the order to pay probation fees, treatment fees, polygraph."
Matter of due process That distinction is one reason Mr. Habern and attorney Richard Gladden are determined to force state officials to give parolees more due process. And though their efforts mostly have been rebuffed by state judges, they're gaining some traction in federal courts: •In 2004, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that "Condition X" can't be imposed on parolees who haven't been convicted of a sex offense, without an "appropriate hearing." •In 2006, the Texas parole board quit automatically denying sex offenders access to their own children, after a lawsuit claimed the board did not give a parolee notice or a hearing. •Earlier this year, federal Judge Sam Sparks in Austin expressed "grave concerns over the fundamental fairness" of such parole board hearings and commented that the Texas attorney general's office, which represents state agencies, "has apparently failed to take such constitutional challenges seriously." Assistant Attorney General David Morales said his office "takes all constitutional challenges seriously." Condition X is imposed on almost all paroled sex offenders, from those who had consensual sex with an underage teen to violent pedophiles. In some instances, sex offender conditions are even imposed on offenders who don't have a conviction for a sex crime, but whose offense included a sexual aspect. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, about 90 percent of paroled sex offenders have Condition X imposed on them.
Majority vote The system gives "someone who is getting out on parole with sex offense stuff less due process than someone who is having their driver's license suspended," said Mr. Gladden, whose business card bears a picture of the Revolutionary War-era "Don't Tread on Me" flag. Mr. Gladden and Mr. Habern are challenging that procedure in Judge Sparks' court. When board members consider putting a convict under Condition X, the inmate doesn't know what evidence is presented against him and has no opportunity to respond. He can't even be sure panel members have read his file, Judge Sparks noted. A parole division employee testified in one case that board members spend an average of 10 to 30 minutes reviewing materials in each case. "It would certainly appear that if the voting members actually reviewed the files, the ... [process] would take substantially longer than 30 minutes," the judge wrote. Parole board member Jose Aliseda, who is a lawyer and former county judge, said the recent court cases "have caused us to examine our policy," and the board is trying "to make sure our policies meet constitutional muster." But he said he's "sufficiently comfortable" with the current process. In a recent 5-4 decision in one case, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the system acceptable.
Going case-by-case Mr. Gladden agreed. "In Texas, before your driver's license can be suspended, you have a right to an in-person hearing," he said. "You have a right to know on what grounds they're going to suspend. You have a right to be heard as to why your license should not be suspended. And you have a right to appeal from that determination. "And it seems to me that ... you start saying, 'What's more important – my driver's license or not being able to live with my kids?'" Ms. Molnar, of Texas Voices, which has about a thousand members and supporters, said the system is not set up for offenders "to reintegrate into society and be productive members of society. It's set up for them to be roadblocked at every single turn." Parole board member Aliseda acknowledges that the restrictions make life difficult, but "I see success stories all the time," he said. "It's not impossible and it's especially not impossible after an offender has established the trust." Torie Camp, deputy director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault, a victim's advocacy group, said the restriction issue is difficult for everyone. "I can easily see how being a parole board member, you would want to err on the side of caution," she said. "They want to do their very best to keep the community safe." Balancing the offender's constitutional rights with public safety is hard, she said. But painting all sex offenders with a broad brush "does a disservice to victims of sexual assault," she said, because the restrictions become meaningless. Like Mr. Habern, she advocates a more individualized approach instead of the restrictions routinely recommended by the parole division and imposed by the parole board. "For our own community safety, we actually have to look at reasonable and fair treatment for sex offenders when they're coming back into our communities, so they can reintegrate," Ms. Camp said. Those concerned about the process blame the parole division and the Legislature, which crafted the sweeping laws, for the problem, not the parole board. "The parole division does not exercise discerning judgment," said parole attorney Gary Cohen. Mr. Cohen said he has no doubt the parole division "deliberately sat down to fashion the most minimal cursory review that they possibly could." Officials with the parole division declined to comment, citing pending litigation. Mr. Cohen has little faith that politicians will rush to protect the constitutional rights of sex offenders. "It's not a politically favorable position for them," he said. Michele Deitch, who teaches criminal justice policy at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, said that eventually, the courts will have to address the issue of how to balance public safety with restricting individual freedoms. The issue of restrictions is "affecting more and more people," she said, and the inability to live a certain way is more than an inconvenience. "It's very clear there's an open question. ... Clearly there's deprivation going on there that needs some kind of due process protection," Ms. Deitch said. By the numbers: 3,789 - Texas parolees supervised as sex offenders 3,391 - Texas parolees subject to Condition X, the tough restrictions on the way many criminals must live once they're out of prison 89.5% - Percentage of sex offender parolees subject to Condition X Texas parole restrictions unfair to low-level offenders
Child killer Raul Meza testifies in bid for freedom
By Steven Kreytak More than 26 years after he killed 8-year-old Kendra Page in Southeast Austin, convicted murderer Raul Meza testified in federal court Monday on his lawsuit challenging the living conditions he is under since being released from prison due to the state’s mandatory supervision law. Meza, who has lived in a minimum security unit of the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle since 2002, said that he enjoys little freedom and limited chances to get a job, which would enable him to move out of the jail and into the community. Meza said, for example, that he only is allowed to spend two hours a week at Project Rio, a job program for parolees. He also complained that parole officials have taken so long to approve him to apply to jobs that they are filled with other candidates. A trial on Meza’s lawsuit against state parole officials began this morning in U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s court in Austin. Meza was sentenced to 30 years for killing Kendra, who was also sexually assaulted, according to her autopsy report. He also received a four-year term for having a weapon in prison. Read a Sunday Statesman story about his lawsuit and history here. He was released on mandatory supervision and lived free for a year and a half in 1993 because his time served and good time credit equaled his sentence. He was sent back to prison on a curfew violation. When he again earned enough good time credit in 2002, he was sent to the Travis County jail complex in Del Valle. His lawyers say he deserves greater freedom but because of the high-profile nature of his crime is subject to tougher conditions of release than other inmates released under similar circumstances and charged with similar crimes. They also contend the conditions were imposed without allowing Meza a chance to rebut their necessity. Lawyers with the Texas attorney general’s office, who represent the defendants, argue that the conditions imposed on Meza are lawful and legitimate given his history. Scott Medlock asked Meza how he felt about his crimes. “I feel terrible,” Meza said. “I feel I destroyed a life, I destroyed a family. I destroyed two families. There’s nothing I can do or say that will change that.” Celamaine Cunniff, who represents Texas Department of Criminal Justice defendants, challenged Meza about his testimony that it has taken parole officials an average of 90 days to approve him to pursue specific job prospects. Cunniff read from records on scores of jobs that indicate that he received answers often the same day or the same week on such requests. Most were denied because the employer did not want to hire someone with Meza’s criminal history or because they were too close to child-safety zones, which includes places such as schools and playgrounds, Cunniff said.
August 24, 2008 Levin urges Corrections Committee to mimic Hawaii's HOPE program At the House Corrections Committee hearing last week, Texas Public Policy Foundation researcher Marc Levin said the state should consider adopting elements of the HOPE initiative in Hawaii - which stands for Hawaii Opportunity Probation with Enforcement. This morning I ran across this 2-page fact sheet from USDOJ describing the program, and also this Wall Street Journal feature from July. The HOPE program is similar to strong probation mechanisms used in drug courts, but with a much broader population of offenders. According to the Wall Street Journal: HOPE is the brainchild of Judge Steven Alm, an energetic 55-year-old former U.S. attorney for Hawaii who drives a black Corvette. He was assigned to criminal court in 2004 and immediately faced a slew of motions to revoke probation. In every case, he recalls, the defendant had "pages of violations stretching back months or even years" yet had suffered virtually no consequences for any of them. That is the reality across the U.S., Prof. Kennedy said. Probation, administered by a patchwork of state and local systems and often starved for resources, "basically teaches people to ignore" probation officers' warnings, he said, until violations accumulate to a tipping point. Then, offenders face dire -- and expensive -- consequences: in Hawaii, as much as 20 years in prison. To Judge Alm, this system seemed as absurd as parents failing to respond to a child's persistent misbehavior and then suddenly kicking him or her out of the house. His idea: Instead of one severe sanction after many violations, mete out relatively minor but "swift and certain" sanctions for every violation. The judge holds a "warning hearing" to explain the HOPE rules. Under regular probation, for example, offenders are usually drug-tested only when they meet with their probation officer, giving them time to wash out the drugs. In HOPE, probationers with a drug problem must call in every weekday morning to see if they are scheduled for a random drug test that day. Virtually every violation results in immediate arrest, a hearing within 72 hours and almost certain jail time, varying from a few days for a first violation to a few months for subsequent ones. Participants who accumulate several violations risk having probation revoked and being sent to prison for years. "I thought it would be counterproductive, " recalled probation officer Sheri Shimbakuku. "How will I help them if they're in jail?" But she says HOPE probationers seemed much more receptive to help: "Boy, it was just different seeing their reaction to being in jail." Flash incarceration has been used around the U.S. by specialized courts established to adjudicate drug cases, with demonstrated success. But the Hawaii program is one of the first to test the approach among a broader group of probationers. In a randomized, controlled trial of more than 500 probationers, researchers from Pepperdine University and the University of California at Los Angeles found HOPE probationers were less than half as likely as controls to miss probation-officer appointments or test dirty for drugs, even though the controls knew in advance when they would be tested and HOPE participants didn't. These preliminary findings are being announced Thursday, and full results are expected by year end.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
August 21, 2008 House Corrections to discuss technology, reentry and state jails The Texas House Corrections Committee will meet this morning at 9 a.m. in the capitol to take up three interim charges that should generate a fascinating discussion: The House Committee on Corrections will hear invited and public testimony on the following interim charges: 1. Explore the use of technology practices that improve efficiency, safety, and coordination of criminal justice activities on the state, local, and county levels. 2. Consider new strategies for meeting prisoner reentry challenges in Texas, including the evaluation of programs with documented success. This review should include the availability of housing and occupational barriers. 3. Provide a comprehensive analysis and study of the Texas state jail system, including original intent for use, sentencing guidelines, and effectiveness. Develop suggestions for changes and improvements in the state jail system. You can watch the hearing once it begins at this link. See also an earlier Grits post on the committee's interim charges and links to materials from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition which will be presented to the committee as part of its reentry discussion.
Posted by Gritsforbreakfast
Learn more about judge's efforts to help probationers, scope of problem
By Steven Kreytak Following up today's Statesman story about state District Judge Charlie Baird's effort to help probationers in his court find jobs, here is some of the information compiled during reporting that did not make the paper. First, here is a link to an accounting of the cases pending as of Aug. 1 in Travis County's seven felony district courts, obtained under the Texas open records law from Debra Hale, court administrator in Travis County. As stated in the story, Baird has the second most cases pending in his court — 976. The 427th District Court, led by Judge Melissa Goodwin, has the most with 1,128. That court was created last year. There are 6,481 felony cases active in Travis County. The story referenced a 2006 Washington State Institute for Public Policy report that Geraldine Nagy, the director of the Travis County adult probation department, said she references often. That report can be found here. Mary Moran, Travis County offender workforce development administrator, said job services for ex-offenders — helping them prepare for and find employment — are in high demand in the area. She said that an estimated 1,500 people looking for jobs attended a job fair organized by the federal probation department and held Aug. 6 at a South Austin hotel. The crowd was so large that several prospective employers did not show up because they could not find parking, Moran said. Finally, anyone looking for a job who wants to participate in the City of Austin program that provides employment and social service help should call Mark Diaz at 972-6742 or Gail Dixon at 972-6749. Prospective employers should call program director Martin Harris at 972-5655.
Efforts to help probationers
Investigation: Questionable Drug Tests
Reported by: Brian Collister
We have all been told that we are innocent until proven guilty.
That's how it's supposed to be.
But right now, some people are being locked up without proof.
A News 4 Trouble Shooters Investigation probed problems at the
probation department to uncover why.
We started by talking to a woman who says she is a victim of the system.
Her name is Shannon McGillis, a mother of eight who is trying to get
her life back on track.
Back in March she got some disturbing news.
“It was...I was angry. I didn't know what to do,” said McGillis.
While on probation for possession of Methamphetamines, her urinalysis
came back positive for drugs.
At the time, she was seven months pregnant.
“I was taken from my kids and my family and everybody, all my loved
ones knew I was innocent," McGillis told the Trouble Shooters.
She spent six weeks in jail.
“The next day I was admitted and my son was born three weeks early,”
said McGillis.
The problem is, she says she doesn't do drugs anymore and she has a
lab test to prove it.
It's a hair test showing she was negative for all drugs.
Lani Bennett also tested positive for drugs while on probation.
"They didn't give me any warning or anything,” said Bennett.
She was shocked when she was arrested at the driver's license office
because of a warrant for a dirty drug test.
"I'm (at) DPS trying to get a status of my license cause I'm trying
to change over insurances for my car and I'm getting taken out in
handcuffs," said Bennett.
She went straight to jail and had only 15 minutes to get someone to
pick up her four year old who was with her at the time.
She also has a hair test proving she was clean.
"People are capable of change. I have the legal paperwork to prove
that I have changed and I did not use,” said Bennett.
“I don't believe in locking people up for dirty urines," said Bill
Fitzgerald, the Chief Probation Officer during an interview in his
office with the Trouble Shooters.
He says that he expected a spike in positive test results.
That's because back in February they stopped doing the drug tests
themselves and hired a company that does drug testing called
Treatment Associates.
They use a small, thin, rectangular-shaped, one-time-use device that
is dipped in the urine.
It's called a rapid test.
The manufacturer says it's used as a preliminary test.
If a single line appears in one of the boxes on the face of the
device, you are positive for that class of drug, but not necessarily
an illegal drug.
"There's one issue there on my part that the test is more sensitive.
So I anticipated we would end up with more people showing up positive
for urinalysis. This test is more sensitive than the ones we used
previously," said Fitzgerald.
In fact, it’s sensitive enough that many prescription, and even some
over-the counter, drugs will test positive.
Something as common as cold medicine could land a person back in jail.
And knowing all that, the county is still using this single test to
determine someone's future.
Fitzgerald says the probationers have the right to ask for a
confirmation test, yet he admits they're not told they have that option.
Brian Collister asked Fitzgerald during the interview, "Why not do
confirmations as a standard procedure?" Fitzgerald responded saying,
"That is more up to the D.A. and the judges than it is to me."
Collister asked, "But why wouldn't you do a confirmation before
sending it to them?” Fitzgerald responded saying "We do confirmations
but we don't...we don't do them standard." Collister asked, "But why
wouldn't you?" Fitzgerald responded, "Well financially...it's um. It
would really hit our budget for one thing."
But that's not true.
We requested the contract Bexar County Adult Probation Department has
with Treatment Associates before our interview with Fitzgerald but we
didn't get it until July 8th, the day we aired the story and a week
after our interview. According to the contract, the department can
request a confirmation test at no additional charge.
But Fitzgerald said he sees no reason to change his current procedures.
Collister asked Fitzgerald, "Are you comfortable with the way things
are set up now where you do not do confirmations as a standard part
of your procedure?" Fitzgerald answered without hesitation "Yes."
And the President of Treatment Associates, Jeff Warner, said he's
comfortable with it, too.
"The rate in the positive tests I stand by. I stand by our
procedures. I stand by the products that have been used in those
procedures," said Warner during an interview in the cramped room
where they refrigerate all the urine that tested positive over the
past few months.
We also noticed in the contract that Treatment Associates is supposed
to keep the urine that tested positive for six months in case the
department requests a confirmation test.
But Warner is only keeping them for 90 days.
Because of all the problems the county is now moving to a less
sensitive test and trying find a better way to handle the cost of
confirmations.
Jun. 21, 2008
Survey reveals flaws in parole system; officers blame computer system
Texas parole officers are supposed to closely watch inmates who are
released from state prisons. But malfunctioning equipment and other
problems allow some parolees to escape scrutiny, according to a new
report by the state auditor’s office.
In a survey, auditors found that for 55 percent of offenders, parole
officers scheduled drugs tests one to three months later than
required by state regulations.
In 12 percent of the cases reviewed, parole officers did not make all
of the required monthly contacts with parolees.
Part of the problem is aging equipment.
Parole officers complained about frequent slowdowns in the computer
system used to track parolee records. The system was supposed to be
completely replaced seven years ago, but the replacement is still
incomplete, auditors said.
The Parole Division of the Department of Criminal Justice employs
about 1,250 parole officers to keep track of about 78,000 parolees.
Online: complete report
— Jeff Claassen
Survey reveals flaws in parole system
MAY 21, 2008
Urinalysis another example of forensic science with subjective results
The rate of positive results on urinalyses at the Bexar County
probation department jumped fourfold after the private lab doing the
tests changed their procedures in February, reports KSAT in San Antonio:
On Monday, the president of the Central Texas Association of Public
Employees and a Bexar County probation officer said the high numbers
of positives were alarming."Confirmat ion has come back to the
department and we're concerned about those, and also, a lot of
defendants on their own have gone out and had hair follicle tests in
other labs to confirm their suspicions," Sheri Simonelli said.
Here's another great example of the subjectivity of forensic science.
In this case, there exist no concrete standards for how to measure
urinalysis results. Reports KSAT, "Jeff Warner, the owner of
Treatment Associates, said a test used before a February switch
wasn't aggressive enough, and has led to a 35 percent jump in
positive drug tests. He said the county's probation department was
using an outdated test and an unguarded urine specimen process."
Normally one doesn't think of judging a scientific metric by whether
it's "aggressive, " but whether it's "accurate." I have no way of
knowing which standard lies closer to the truth. But if a change in
(unregulated) testing protocols resulted in such dramatic a
difference in results, the disparity demonstrates once again how
large the error rate can be in common forensic science techniques
that most people consider reliable.
Speeding release of parolees could ease prison guard shortage, lawmakers say
Whitmire, Madden question prison policies that keep inmates who are approved for release behind bars.
By Mike Ward
As Texas' prison system struggles with an acute shortage of guards, two legislative leaders called Thursday for a review of whether thousands of convicts who have been approved for parole but still are awaiting release could be let go to ease the crisis.
As many as 11,000 convicts could be good candidates for hastened releases from Texas' understaffed prisons, according to Sen. John Whitmire and Rep. Jerry Madden, who head legislative committees that oversee prisons. Thousands of inmates would already be on parole but for paperwork delays or a lack of enough treatment programs, which lawmakers last spring ordered drastically expanded.
John Whitmire wonders if trusties being kept as help.
Jerry Madden thinks closing more wings may be 'wise.'
Although guard shortages have been building for several years, primarily because of low pay and poor working conditions, the magnitude of the current problems took some state leaders by surprise this week when it was disclosed that a 300-bed wing in a Panhandle prison had been closed because there weren't enough guards to staff it. And although lawmakers began talking Thursday about how to remedy the situation, nobody was suggesting a pay raise for correctional officers.
Legislative analysts said a pay hike that correctional officers are seeking is not currently possible because it could cost upward of $500 million, a big-ticket item not in the state budget.
"In my judgment, we have thousands of people locked up who don't need to be there," said Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee.
"Last year, there were 6,200 trusties in the system — the lowest, lowest-risk offenders — and 5,700 of those were parole-eligible. But they were still locked up. ... There were 1,500 that were already approved for parole with a release date for next summer.
"Why not go ahead and process them out, drop the population of the system so we have enough correctional officers to properly cover shifts?"
Trusties are the lowest-risk, lowest-security prisoners in the system, and they often are assigned jobs helping run the units, including cooking, laundry and filing.
"These are the inmates who are helping staff these units, and I have to wonder whether they (prison officials) want to keep them there just to keep the units running," Whitmire said. "The public safety danger now is really not over whether to let these already paroled inmates get out — it's about not doing anything."
In the past, suggestions of speeding up releases have triggered criticism from prosecutors and victims' groups who insist that freeing thousands of convicts is not the best way to address prison problems.
Two decades ago, they note, such a decision resulted in a spike in violent crime in Houston and other areas, triggering a backlash for longer sentences and more prisons.
Madden, chairman of the House Corrections Committee, agreed that the already approved parolees still in prison should be reviewed.
"We shouldn't let anyone out of prison who shouldn't be out, but I would urge (prison and parole officials) to look at this," said Madden, R-Richardson. "We must ensure that we have safe staffing levels in our prisons — which I can't say now that we do at some sites — and closing some additional wings of some units seems a wise way to stretch the short staff farther."
Prison officials last October quietly mothballed a wing at a Dalhart prison because they didn't have enough guards to properly operate the unit. About the same time, officials relocated 300 high-security convicts from a prison in Northeast Texas and replaced them with lower-risk felons, who take fewer correctional officers to supervise.
The moves marked the first time in recent years that chronic staffing shortages have forced such changes. Prison officials insisted that proper security is being maintained, an assertion challenged by some correctional officers who warn that the situation is becoming dangerous.
Whitmire, Madden and other lawmakers on Thursday questioned the opening of two new prisons — former Texas Youth Commission lockups in San Saba and Marlin are to open this spring as 616-bed adult prisons — when existing units are plagued by critical shortages.
Lawmakers last spring approved funding for an additional 6,000 treatment and rehabilitation beds in a bid to cut recidivism and gave prison officials authority to build two new prisons.
Michelle Lyons, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, said those conversions were mandated by the Legislature last spring. Other prison officials said all options are being reviewed to ensure public safety.
Express your concerns about BPP/TDCJ to the Legislative Leaders below:
2007
Inmates’ early release worries prosecutors
By Bill Hankins
Published December 9, 2007
A new and serious issue relating to justice is developing across the state of Texas, and local district and county attorneys are being caught up in the state’s drive to clear prison beds.
To do so, parole officials are under pressure to release some convicted people early to have space for more violent offenders.
“Clearly, this is a money issue,” said Lamar District and County Attorney Gary Young. “The state has to find a way to pay for these folks to be housed in prisons. But justice is not being served when someone does eight years of a life sentence.”
Young was referring to a Lamar County case in which Clifton Blackshear was sentenced in 1999 to life in prison for the manufacture of a controlled substance.
He was released earlier this year and is back in Lamar County.
In another Lamar County case, Timothy Brett Taylor received a three-year sentence and began serving his time in April of this year.
Parole officials already have announced his release. He is back in Lamar County.
“We are back to where we were in the late eighties and early nineties,” Young said. “Prisons are full again and the parole system is working to free up beds.”
“It is sad when defendants are getting their first parole consideration when they are still in our county jail awaiting transfer to the actual prison,” Young said.
That has happened in some Lamar County cases in which an inmate received his parole while still in Lamar County Jail.
“There are people who know how to work the system that are agreeing to go to prison for what appears to be decent five or six-year sentences who know they will be out in less than a year,” Young said . “Many of them would rather do that than be on probation for two or three years.”
Assistant County Attor-ney Bill Harris said he was amazed at the defendant’s reaction in a recent burglary of a habitation case.
“I was prepared to offer him a lengthy probation, no jail time, but he told me he just wanted a sentence,” Harris said. “He knows that on non-violent offenses, inmates are doing about a month and a half for each year of their sentence. He knows he is going to be out of prison in less than a year, so why would he want to be on probation six or seven years, when he can go to prison and get it over with in just months.”
State prison officials report there are 738,000 beds for adults in the state system, and that number is being reached on a regular basis, so release of some prisoners in non-violent cases may be pushed ahead of their scheduled release.
The overcrowding of state prisons puts pressure back on county jail systems, which have a 71,962-bed capacity in Texas. That could cause some overcrowding in county jails in upcoming months.
Texas HB 337, which addresses the issue, requires the courts to sentence probation violators appropriately and not revoke them to prison for minor mistakes.
That also means more offenders remain on the streets even if they have failed to meet all the probation rules and have committed some repeat offenses.
One of the tools used by parole officials is a different system of calculating time prisoners serve.
“Some prisoners are getting eight to one credit for good time,” Harris said. “The way they are calculating good time is perpetrating a fraud on the citizens of the state of Texas, because they are giving these guys so much good time, they are discharging their sentences way before the law says they are actually eligible for parole.”
Contrast that with the Lamar County Sheriff’s system, which makes prisoners serve more of their sentences.
“The system that Sheriff B.J. McCoy has in place is the first 30 days are flat time, and after that 30 days, if a prisoner is a good prisoner, he will get two for one credit,” Harris said. “That means a 60-day sentence will be served in 45 days.”
Victim and Witness coordinator Alan Hubbard said the release system used today is not fair for victims of crime.
“They leave the courtroom after sentencing feeling a sense of justice only to learn later the defendant is serving little of that time,” he said. “Juries cannot be told the sentence they hand down can be reduced tremendously, and the juries could not consider that in sentencing if they knew.”
Hubbard said another problem is that prison officials are alerting the county attorney’s office after a prisoner already has been released and not giving time for a county attorney to contest that release.
Harris said the federal courts and prison system work a lot different.
“A sentence to federal prison will mean a prisoner will serve most of their sentences before they have a possibility of parole,” he said.
AUSTIN
The Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP)
PEP founded by Houston couple Catherine and Steve Rohr, was honored with the Governor’s 2007 Criminal Justice Volunteer Service Award today in recognition of its role in helping offenders incarcerated within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The “Most Innovative Program” award was presented to Catherine Rohr by Christina Melton Crain, Chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, and TDCJ Executive Director Brad Livingston during a ceremony held in Austin. PEP is among 6 organizations and 13 individuals from across the state recognized for their efforts to help inmates and those who are on parole or probation.
The PEP program targets offenders who are nearing release, and who possess an entrepreneurial spirit. Operating at the Hamilton Unit in Bryan, offenders volunteer to participate in the four-month program where they learn to develop full business plans and make oral presentations. Offenders are paired with mentors -- top business executives from across the U.S. who travel to the unit each month.
Rohr herself is no stranger to the business world. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 1999, Rohr worked as an associate at Summit Partners in Palo Alto and then as Director of Investment Development for American Securities Capital Partners in New York.
Rohr explained that she and her husband first had an idea for helping offenders develop a business strategy in April 2004 after visiting with a former inmate in who had started a successful handyman business.
“In the process, we realized that inmates and executives have much more in common than one might think,” she said. “Many inmates are creative, passionate, ambitious, courageous and intelligent individuals with a strong entrepreneurial drive – their energy has just been applied in the wrong direction. I figured that if inmates’ entrepreneurial passions and influential personalities were properly channeled, they could become successful and production members of society.”
TEXAS PRISONS
New parole system director chosen
By Mike Ward
Veteran parole administrator Stuart Jenkins was promoted Thursday to replace Bryan Collier as director of Texas' adult parole system, where he has worked for nearly a quarter-century.
Texas' system is one of the nation's largest, monitoring the supervised freedom of more than 76,000 felons.
Collier was chosen last month as deputy executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Collier replaced Ed Owens, who became conservator over the Texas Youth Commission about two months ago.
Jenkins, 47, will make $100,000 a year in his new job, officials said.
A 1982 criminal justice graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University, Jenkins joined the then-state Department of Corrections in July 1982 as a parole officer in Houston, and he worked his way up through the ranks as a supervisor, a hearings analyst, a regional director and head of the parole division's warrants section.
For the past two years, he has served as deputy director of support services for the parole division of the criminal justice agency, which supervises parolees once they are approved for release.
mward@statesman.com; 445-1712
NEWS Texas/Southwest
Inmates fight fading 'pre-parole' system
May 28, 2007
MINERAL WELLS – If you have to be behind bars, the "pre-parole transfer unit" here is about as good as it gets.
The 2,100 inmates wear street clothes instead of uniforms; live in air-conditioned dormitories instead of hot, cramped cells; and have access to telephones where they can make collect calls to friends and family, instead of relying on the U.S. Postal Service.
But tension has been building for months behind the razor wire.
That's because the Mineral Wells unit is a "pre-parole transfer facility" in name only – a remnant of an ambitious program launched a quarter-century ago aimed at relieving prison overcrowding and reducing repeat offenders.
Three inmates have gone "over the fence" since August. Others have paid hundreds of dollars to join a lawsuit protesting the parole system. And still others have sent lengthy letters to the "free world" venting their frustration.
It has reached such a critical point that officials have started moving some of the inmates back into regular prison facilities for security reasons. Between 50 and 60 inmates who had been denied "mandatory release" four times were transferred.
"If you've been denied mandatory supervision four times, then those offenders may become more frustrated," said Bryan Collier, director of the parole division. "And then they feel they may be more prone to [escape]."
PRE-PAROLE FACILITIES
"I can't do my time here," he wrote in mid-May. "I'm desperate to get home... to get back to TDC and out of this ... abyss called Mineral Wells."
Shortly after that letter, the convicted burglar from Dallas committed a minor infraction in the hope that it would get him a transfer out of the parole division and back to the prison system. He asked an officer to smuggle contraband out of the unit. Until then, he had worked hard to maintain a record of good behavior so he would be granted parole.
His plan worked. He is due to be transferred to another unit – without the perks of "pre-parole."
Still, Mr. Morris hopes his chances of release will be better there than in Mineral Wells.
Only about one in 10 Mineral Wells inmates is any closer to release than inmates elsewhere in the system, estimated Rissie Owens, chairwoman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles. The other 90 percent simply have been assigned there by the parole division of TDCJ and haven't been approved for release by the board.
Because of the name, inmates "probably think ... based on what 'pre-parole' would mean in the perfect world – that they're going to be released," said Ms. Owens.
"The purpose, the role, whatever of the pre-parole transfer facility? Talk to TDCJ," Ms. Owens said.
TDCJ spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said the original purpose of pre-parole units was akin to halfway houses. But little of that program survives. Today, Mineral Wells "functions as a prison unit," said Ms. Lyons, tough inmates are no longer counted in the prison population, but in the parole division population.
Wanting a way out
"It gets kind of hopeless," he said in a telephone interview. The "carrot" of parole is always in front of the inmates, but "when you behave, they smack it out of your hand."
When Mr. Morris was assigned to "pre-parole" in 2005, he assumed his release was imminent.
"When you come here you're supposed to go home," said Mr. Morris, who was sentenced to 10 years in 2002 on charges ranging from burglary to credit card abuse to evading arrest, in Dallas, Collin and Denton counties.
That seemed a safe assumption based on the definition of "pre-parole" facilities. To get to a "pre-parole" facility, inmates must be within 12 months of their presumed parole date, have a good disciplinary record and be classified at a minimum custody level.
Inmates who arrive at Mineral Wells receive "a new identification badge stating that they are under the supervision of the parole division," said Ohio attorney Norman Sirak, who has filed suit on behalf of Texas inmates. Initially, Mr. Morris' time behind bars was "a godsend," the 38-year-old said, because it helped him clean up after years of drug abuse. But though he requested drug treatment, he said, the only programs available are the voluntary ones he already joined.
He believes his "good" time credits combined with his "flat" time behind bars total more than 100 percent of his sentence, he said. "There's no reason I shouldn't be gone."
He said he requested reassignment to a regular prison unit, hoping a different parole board would release him. But he never got a response. Finally, he decided to force the situation by breaking the rules.
Adding up the criteria
"You can't serve more than 100 percent of your sentence," she said patiently. "You've only served five years [and] you've got five years of good time credit. They feel like they've done their 100 percent but [they] have not."
Mr. Morris and other inmates claim the board violates state guidelines by not granting parole when suggested criteria are met – an argument also made recently in the Legislature.
But, Ms. Owens said parole guidelines are simply decision-making tools.
"Parole guidelines do not say 'yes' or 'no,'" she said. "It's static and dynamic factors that are merged together to get a parole score to tell us if a person would be a good risk on parole supervision."
Mr. Morris is frustrated on various levels. In addition to maintaining a good prison record, he lined up a place to live, a job and even a church to help him ease back into society.
Yet the parole board keeps denying him parole saying his accrued time "is not an accurate reflection" of his "potential for rehabilitation" and that his release would "endanger the public."
How can he "endanger the public" Mr. Morris asked indignantly, when he has no record of violence in or out of prison?
The inmate may not be a murderer or rapist, Ms. Owens said, but "there is a victim."
"I guess 'danger' means different things to different people," she said. If you're the one whose home was burglarized, or who was swindled by a white-collar criminal at the Mineral Wells unit, "you'd probably consider them dangerous, too."
Mr. Morris was to come up for parole again in September, but TDCJ spokeswoman Lyons said she doesn't know when he will be eligible again. Though Mr. Morris claimed the board didn't pay attention to his good behavior, Ms. Lyons said, "any type of infraction...will be considered."
'Humane' intentions
"The thinking was to find a humane way of letting inmates out into the community with support," said Mr. Daugherty, now retired.
In the early years, 1,100 inmates were placed in small "residential settings" across the state.
Mr. Daugherty screened inmates for placement by checking their original crimes and prison records. Once in the units, they had access to counseling and classes – and paying jobs in the community in some instances. Part of their wages went for room and board and part for victim compensation. The rest could be set aside for use upon release or for their families.
Inmates could come and go – and some of them simply left, which was one problem with the program, said Mr. Collier, of the parole division.
There was no "one event that shut pre-parole transfers down," he said. But many facilities folded "because of the 'not in my backyard,'" sentiment.
Pre-parole programs also suffered from poor timing, said Dr. Elmer Polk, associate professor of criminology at the University of Texas at Arlington. They were "successful in reducing costs of incarceration," he said, "but we did still have a high recidivism rate among the releasees."
The push to crack down on crime signaled the end of the program in Texas.
Few remnants remain
"We could cut recidivism better that way than any other program I've seen," he said. "It still should be done...(but) since the mid-90s to today the Legislature has taken the attitude that nobody can be soft on crime and get re-elected."
Remnants of the pre-parole program remain scattered throughout the prison system, Ms. Lyons said.
For example, a few units offer prison industry programs that pay inmates – but the jobs are within the unit, not in the community. Other programs such as Project RIO (Reintegration of Offenders) help inmates find work. Job fairs are held at all units.
Meanwhile Sonny Morris marks time, back in the prison system.
"It's very misleading for my family," he said. "It's misleading for me," he said.
His lament is not likely to affect members of the parole board.
"I've been on this board for a number of years," Ms. Owens said, "and no one has ever said to me 'you need to release more people.'"
Inmates fight fading 'pre-parole' system
Lawmakers seek better parole, officer retention
April 13, 2007
The Texas Youth Commission’s woes have served as a nice warning sign to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ): “Get your house in order before this happens to you.”
It so happens that TDCJ is up for review this legislative session. The House Corrections committee this past week heard several bills looking to address the agency’s significant problems: none quite as epic as TYC’s, and yet…
Three problem areas dominated the committee’s discussion on April 2:
Those last two are closely related, as many believe that relieving crowding means doing more to prepare inmates for reentry into society.
The leading legislation on TDCJ is the sunset bill-HB 2053 from corrections committee chairman Jerry Madden (R-Plano). The bill, along with all bills before the committee on April 2, was left pending. Madden said there would certainly be substitute language before the bill went to the floor.
The bill as filed contains the recommendations from the Sunset Commission regarding TDCJ, the Parole Board and the Correctional Managed Care Committee.
The recommendations, as Madden described them, provide for better information to policymakers regarding the criminal justice system, improvements on parole decision-making, increased consideration for early termination of parole and probation, and greater oversight and transparency of the correctional healthcare system. Finally the bill continues TDCJ until the year 2019.
HB 2053 would establish a six-member legislative oversight committee in order to provide information and analysis to the criminal justice system. Like the former Criminal Justice Policy Council, the committee would have the authority to hire staff. The committee would include Madden and Senate Criminal Justice Committee chairman John Whitmire (D-Houston), as well as two senators appointed by the lieutenant governor and two House members named by the speaker.
The bill also requires the parole board to annually update its parole guidelines and update the Legislature on its efforts to meet them. The bill would also require parole board members who deviate from guidelines in making a decision to provide detailed written statements explaining why.
Madden said he intended to put TDCJ back under Sunset review in four years rather than the standard 12 for state agencies, in light of its size and magnitude. He said he believed Whitmire would do the same.
Poor employee relations has plagued TDCJ much as it has TYC-and may lead to similar problems. The tell-tale sign of employee woes has been the shortage of correctional officers (CO’s). The shortage is attributable to two main factors: an inordinate turnover rate and lack of incentive for qualified people to apply in the first place.
Dee Simpson, representing the Correctional Employees Council, said his organization would like to see more employee issues addressed in the Sunset bill.
Simpson said the U. S. Department of Justice shows Texas leading the nation in reported sexual assaults in adult prison systems. Moreover, Simpson said, many assaults in Texas prisons go unreported because “there’s not enough eyes out there, because we’re running shortages all the time.”
He suggested that the legislation mandate that TDCJ sit down and work with certified employee organizations (i.e., unions) and form a list of issues and possible solutions and send it as a report to the legislative oversight committee.
One issue that has hampered retention rates at TDCJ for years was what Simpson characterized as an “unfortunate” overtime policy.
Until December 2007, overtime pay was held by TDCJ until employees resigned or retired. Overtime labor historically has been rather commonplace at TDCJ, and not voluntary. So employees have been required to work more than they were getting paid for. This created a dubious situation in which employees were actually given an incentive to quit their positions-because only by doing that could they collect their constantly growing nest egg of overtime pay.
Changes have recently been made, according to TDCJ executive director Brad Livingston. Since Jan. 1, 2007, the official policy of TDCJ has been to pay employees during the pay period for which they earned the overtime.
But TDCJ still owes $30 to $35 million to (mostly correctional) staff. “Talk about having a surplus,” said Rep. Scott Hochberg. (D-ouston). “It’s easy to have a surplus if you don’t pay your bills.”
Livingston said that in any given year more than 6,000 CO’s leave the agency, out of 24,000.
Simpson noted that retention rates have increased since implementation of the overtime pay policy change.
Rep. Pat Haggerty (R-El Paso) said he would offer an amendment to HB 2053 mandating that the overtime pay policy remain as it is now. Livingston said he would not have a problem with that. “My absolute intent is to keep this policy in place,” he said.
In addition to fixing problems for current TDCJ employees, the committee is also considering ways to entice people to work for TDCJ. Rep. Lois Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) brought HB 2103 before the committee, which would create a pilot scholarship program used as a tool to recruit CO’s.
Kolkhorst said initial scholarships would be offered only to Huntsville CO’s attending or planning to attend Sam Houston State University, mainly in order to keep down the fiscal note and show some success before expanding the program.
Criminal justice and political science professor Ed Davis of Sam Houston State University suggested perhaps even offering the scholarship to current TDCJ employees who have GED’s, as they have already “earned their spurs” at TDCJ.
Kolkhorst said she would work out a committee substitute with the higher education coordinating board as soon as possible. “The sooner the better,” Madden said.
Texas prisons are reaching levels of overcrowding unseen since Gov. Ann Richards’ massive prison-building campaign in the early 90s. Efforts to reduce the overcrowding without building more prisons would necessitate several measures, including paroling more non-violent offenders and diverting unincarcerated non-violent offenders to other programs.
HB 3702 from Rep. Borris Miles (D-Houston) would restore mandatory supervision solely for third degree drug possession non-violent offenders.
Third degree refers to small amounts of a substance, mainly for personal use.
“Mandatory supervision” (MS) refers to the automatic release of inmates after their calendar time served plus good time (i.e. credits one gets for good behavior during incarceration) equals the sentence. In 1995 the Legislature abolished MS in favor of discretionary mandatory supervision (DMS).
The bill does not affect offenders convicted of dealing, nor would it affect third degree property offenders, Miles emphasized.
Violent “3G” offenders would be ineligible for MS just as they are currently for DMS. The bill would allow the TDCJ to focus more on violent and sex offenders, Miles said. He also argued that placing drug offenders on MS sooner than later would allow them to be reintegrated into society.
Marc Levin, director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Center for Effective Justice, observed that from 1977 to 1995 Texas had MS for almost everyone. Miles’ legislation would return to that policy, but only for the small class of third degree drug possession offenders.
According to the Legislative Budget Board, this would result in the early release of 527 offenders per year. This is significant, Levin argued, because the state hopes to release 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners per year to alleviate the projected need for 17,000 new prison beds by 2012.
“This is one piece of the puzzle, and a pretty substantial piece,” Levin said.
Texas leads nation in use of satellite tracking
April 10, 2007
GPS devices help monitor movements of high-risk offenders
When TDCJ District Parole Officer Taylor Goodlett looks at his laptop computer screen each morning, he normally sees a lot of little green dots. The dots tell him exactly where a high-risk offender on his caseload had gone the day before and that he was, in fact, authorized to travel to those locations. Red dots, on the other hand, alert him that the offender might have gone astray.
Goodlett is one of four officers working out of the Parole Division’s Region I central office in Tyler who use global positioning system (GPS) devices as part of their jobs. The technology is used to monitor the movements of high-risk offenders assigned to the agency’s Super Intensive Supervision Program (SISP) by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP).
“What GPS does for me is that in a matter of minutes I can track where my offender has been all day long,” Goodlett said.
TDCJ utilizes GPS for the monitoring of high-risk offenders more than any other criminal justice agency in the nation. Its use stems from legislation passed by Texas lawmakers in 1997 that instructed the agency to establish a program to provide super intensive supervision for offenders at the highest risk of committing further crimes as determined by the BPP.
More than 1,400 SISP offenders are now being monitored by way of either active or passive GPS devices throughout the state. They include sex offenders, prison gang leaders, as well as offenders with histories of violent assaults and extensive prison disciplinary records.
Most of these offenders were not actually paroled but, instead, released under sentencing laws which provided for release when calendar time served plus good time earned equaled length of sentence. In other cases, the offenders met all requirements for release.
“SISP is the highest level of supervision that the state of Texas can offer, short of an offender being in prison,” said Region I Director Jay Patzke. “It’s dedicated specifically to offenders that pose the greatest risk to the public.”
How GPS Works
With the active system, data from a tracking device is downloaded live, giving a parole officer a real-time look at an offender’s movements. It is reserved for offenders with the highest risk factors. Tracking information from the passive system can be downloaded every six to 12 hours.
Downloading begins once an offender arrives home ahead of curfew and places the device in a base unit. Officers then review the data the following morning on their computer screens. Green dots pinpoint the offender’s location throughout the day within a 20-foot radius and green arrows point out the direction traveled on roadways. Officers can even read the rate of speed at which an offender drove and send him a text message on his tracking device warning him to slow down if necessary.
But should there be an unexplainable disconnect between the three main GPS components at anytime, day or night, an alert is sent to the satellite vendor, the Parole Division’s Warrants Section in Austin, and the supervising parole office. Alerts are also swiftly dispatched if an offender breaks curfew or travels to locations outside those approved in advance by his parole officer.
Sex offenders with child safety zone requirements, for example, cannot come within 500 feet of a school or any other facility where children commonly gather.
Also, a violent offender must steer well clear of the neighborhood in which the person he victimized lives.
“Somebody is actually watching the offender 24 hours a day,” Patzke said about offenders monitored by passive GPS. “If he were to leave, it would send out an alert right then. We would then issue a warrant either locally or from the warrants center in Austin. Part of the beauty of the system is that everybody has access to it.”
A Real Timesaver
“With GPS, the officer can now pull up the screen and watch exactly what road he goes down and where he is going at all times,” Goodlett said. “So it eliminates the officer having to physically go out and verify the location of the offender. It improves time management.”
GPS monitoring, in fact, has reduced the number of contacts a parole officer must have with an SISP offender each month from 15 to nine. However, officers still meet face-to-face with SISP offenders at least once a week at their offices and at the home of the offenders.
“GPS has not replaced the offender case management contacts, but it has made things more mobile in that we can do verifications from the office,” Patzke said. “Now we know where an offender is 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Before, we had to do random checks. It took a lot more time. Officers were driving 60 to 70 miles just to do one check. And they were doing that weekly.”
Expanded Service? Offenders not assigned to SISP can be placed on a regular caseload or supervised in part through electronic monitoring (EM) devices, which records only the times he leaves and arrives back home.
District Parole Officer Edna Douglas supervises eight releasees on electronic monitoring and eight on GPS out of the Tyler office. She and fellow officer Larry Martin favor GPS over EM because of its ability to track offenders. And each believes its use might well be extended to people who commit the same crime repeatedly.
It now costs the state $9.95 a day for each offender on active GPS supervision. Passive GPS supervision costs $4.41 a day, and electronic monitoring $2.16 a day per offender. Patzke said expanding GPS usage might strain the current number of parole officers since those with SISP caseloads now supervise far fewer offenders than their counterparts with regular caseloads.
“It’s very intensive in terms of personnel,” Patzke said about GPS supervision. “An average caseload of a parole officer is around 75 people. The officers who supervise SISP offenders carry around 15 to 20 people.
All agree that GPS monitoring has proven effective during its four years of use in Texas. Patzke and Region I Assistant Director Rodney Adams said the restrictions attached to GPS monitoring appear especially rehabilitative to offenders who may never before have had to adhere to a structured lifestyle.
For the most part, GPS offenders can travel only to their jobs, to the parole office, and to treatment providers. Everything else, including trips to the grocery store, must be scheduled. Any deviation from their approved daily schedule sounds the alert.
“It basically forces them to lead normal lives,” Patzke said. “For the vast majority of them, if they’re on it for awhile, it appears to change the structure of their lives. And it’s part of our mission to help them do that.”
“I would say it’s a plus to the offender,” Adams added. “There’s a lot of things that we allow an offender to do because we can track and monitor him.
This allows us the flexibility to where we can still be secure and protect the public.
Patzke said SISP offenders are reviewed annually to monitor their progress on GPS. He says he regularly receives recommendations from officers within his region for offenders doing well on the system to be removed from the state’s highest level of supervision by the BPP. He said employers interested in promoting SISP offenders to higher level jobs also write to ask that their performing employees be moved to a lower level of supervision.
“For a lot of them, this is the first time they have actually experienced success,” Patzke said about offenders who have learned to adapt to having their every move tracked electronically. “It just adds that structure and motivation for them to lead a normal lifestyle. And it works to the offender’s advantage because we can see where he’s at and what he’s doing and where he’s been. If you know your parole officer can see where you’re at and he’s not having to walk into your place of employment and check on you visually like we were doing, that makes your life a lot easier, too. It’s a plus both ways.”
Teague v. Quarterman
Cause 05-11368
On March 21, 2007, the United States Court of Appeal
for the Fifth Circuit issued its decision in Teague v.
Quarterman. Teague is a very important case that
directly affects prisoners who are eligible for
mandatory supervision release.
I suspect that the TDCJ will ask for rehearing and try
to persuade the full Court to reverse the Teague
decision. However, unless and until the Court reverses
itself, Teague is good law.
CASE HISTORY
1. Disciplinary Case and Hearing
In December 2001, TDCJ prisoner Teague received a
disciplinary case for "trafficking and trading"
(Offense Code 15.0) because another prisoner (Jordan)
"caused $225.00 to be deposited into Teague’s" Inmate
Trust Fund Account. The TDCJ alleged that Teague had
Jordan place the money into his ITF account in
exchange for Teague providing Jordan legal assistance.
Teague denied the allegation. The TDCJ produced no
evidence to show that Teague knew that Jordan had
asked someone to deposit money into Teague’s ITF
account. Nevertheless, at the disciplinary hearing,
Teague was found guilty and part of his sanction was
the loss of 30 days of good time. After his Step 1 and
Step 2 were denied, he filed a petition for writ of
habeas corpus (28 U.S.C. §2254) in federal court.
2. 28 U.S.C. §2254
Teague alleged that he was deprived of procedural due
process under the Fourteenth Amendment and raised the
following claims:
--Insufficient evidence to support the finding of
guilt
--Prison officials failed to serve him timely with
notice of the alleged violation
--Disciplinary hearing officer was not impartial
--Disciplinary hearing officer improperly denied his
request to call witnesses
--Disciplinary hearing officer improperly denied his
request to have the charging officer present at the
hearing
--Disciplinary hearing officer stopped recoding the
hearing during Teague’s presentation of evidence
--TDCJ improperly removed $225.00 from his inmate
trust account
The District Court granted relief on the grounds that
there was insufficient evidence to support the
disciplinary hearing officer’s guilty finding and
denied the rest of the claims.
The TDCJ filed a Rule 59e "Motion to Alter or Amend
the Judgment" on the grounds that the loss of 30 days
of good time is "de minimis" and insufficient to
warrant due process protection.
The District Court agreed that the loss of 30 days of
good-time credits, which represented approximately
.18% of Teague’s prison sentence, was de minimis. The
Court granted the TDCJ’s Motion and held that the loss
of 30 days of good-time credits was insufficient to
entitle Teague to due process.
Teague then filed a Motion for Certificate of
Appealability, which the District Court granted.
3. United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit
On March 21, 2007, almost six years after the
disciplinary hearing on the trafficking and trading
case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit issued its decision in Teague.In its opinion,
the Court affirmed:
When a state prisoner has a constitutional expectancy
to an early release from prison based on the
accumulation of good-time credits, he has a protected
liberty interest in the good-time credits and is
entitled to due process before he can be deprived of
the good time credits; and
There is no right or constitutional expectancy to
early release on parole in Texas because parole is
within the total and unfettered discretion of the
State; and
Texas’ pre-September 1, 1996 mandatory supervision
statutes creates a protected liberty interest in
good-time credits. Therefore, prisoners eligible for
mandatory supervision release under the pre-September
1, 1996 statute are entitled to due process before the
TDCJ can take away any of their good-time credits.
The Court also held, for the first time:
(1) Texas’ post-September 1, 1996 mandatory
supervision statute does not deprive prisoners of
their constitutional expectancy of release; and
(2) Texas’ post-September 1, 1996 mandatory
supervision statute creates a constitutional
expectancy of early release and a protected liberty
interest in previously earned good-time credits.
Therefore, prisoners eligible for mandatory
supervision release under the post-September 1, 1996
statute are entitled to due process before the TDCJ
can take away any of their good-time credits; and
(3) Good time may not be taken away from a state
prisoner by a TDCJ administrative tribunal without
affording the prisoner due process, regardless of the
absolute number of days forfeited of the percentage of
the sentence (or the remaining balance thereof)
represented by the number of days lost; and
(4) TDCJ cannot discipline a prisoner for a Code 15.0
Offense (trafficking and trading) when there is no
evidence that the prisoner had any knowledge of or
participated in an unauthorized deposit into his
Inmate Trust Fund Account.
WHY THIS CASE IS IMPORTANT
All prisoners with mandatory supervision dates have a
protected interest in their good-time. Prior to
Teague, only prisoners who were under the
pre-September 1, 1996 mandatory supervision statute
had a protected interest in their good-time credits.
The TDCJ must give this class of prisoners (prisoners
with mandatory supervision dates) due process before
depriving them of any previously earned good-time
credits, regardless of the amount of the good time and
there is no exception for an amount that might
otherwise be considered "de minimis."
If a prisoner with a mandatory supervision date loses
good time in a disciplinary hearing, he can challenge
the disciplinary hearing via a federal petition for
writ of habeas corpus.
The TDCJ cannot use Offense Code 15.0 (trafficking &
trading offense) to punish a prisoner who has no
knowledge of or participation in an unauthorized
deposit into his trust account.
WHAT TO REMEMBER
This case has no affect on prisoners who are not
eligible for mandatory supervision release. The
holdings in this case have no application to parole
because there is no right or constitutional expectancy
to early release on parole in Texas. Parole is within
the total and unfettered discretion of the State.
ALSO IMPORTANT
This case took almost six years to work its way
through the courts.
Teague was represented by court appointed attorney
Jason Douglas Hawkins of the Federal Public Defender’s
Office for the Northern District of Texas.
TDCJ was represented by Steven Michael Bozarth of the
Texas Attorney General’s Office. Steven Bozarth is the
husband of Melinda Bozarth who is the General Counsel
for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The Fifth Circuit heard oral argument on November 9,
2006.
WHAT PRISONERS SHOULD DO IF THIS CASE APPLIES TO THEM
Any prisoner who was disciplined and punished for a
Code 15.0 offense, and who the TDCJ did not/cannot
prove had knowledge of or participated in the
unauthorized deposit into his ITF account, should file
a grievance about the disciplinary case and ask that
the case be reversed regardless of how long ago the
disciplinary case was written. He should cite Teague
as support for his grievance.
If the prisoner had money confiscated from his ITF
account because of a Code 15.0 Offense (trafficking
and trading), he should file grievance and request
that the TDCJ refund the money. He should file both a
Step 1 and Step 2 and cite the Teague case for
support.
Sunset panel urges ethics rules for parole commissioners
Report recommends more independence from
By Mike Ward
State law prohibits the seven parole board members and their spouses
from having ties to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which
runs the prison system. The reason is to avoid conflicts of interest
in parole decisions.
The law, however, does not cover the state's 12 parole commissioners,
who are hired by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to help make
such decisions.
In fact, at least nine parole commissioners are former prison system
employees, including one who retired and was hired as a commissioner
in the same year.
In a little-publicized section of proposed changes for Texas'
criminal justice system, the Sunset Advisory Commission on Wednesday
took the first step to hold everyone involved to the same standard.
"They should all be impartial. They should all have no conflict,"
said Senate Criminal Justice Commission Chairman John Whitmire, D-
Houston, a member of the Sunset advisory panel. "This is a loophole
we need to close."
Under the recommendations:
•Parole commissioners and their spouses would be prohibited from
owning an entity founded or regulated by the prison agency or parole
board.
•Commissioners and their spouses could not be officers or paid
representatives of a criminal justice trade association.
•Commissioners could not be registered lobbyists.
•Commissioners could not have worked for the prison agency within two
years.
The changes, argues the report, "would strengthen the parole board's
independence from (the Texas Department of Criminal Justice), and
help prevent the bias in release and revocation of decisions."
One catch: The change would apply prospectively, and would not
include current parole commissioners.
Parole board Chairwoman Rissie Owens' husband, Ed, is deputy
executive director of the prison system.
Sunset panel urges ethics rules for parole commissioners
Parole notices flood the state
No rush to release, officials say, only a bureaucratic mix-up
By Mike Ward
Judges, prosecutors and police across Texas got a shock just after
Thanksgiving, when their mailboxes filled with notices that tens of
thousands of convicts were coming up for parole.
All at once, there were 29,000 letters statewide, a torrent when
normally just a few thousand are mailed each week.
"I got probably 40 or 50 in one day, where I might usually get two or
three," Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. "I
thought they were doing a flood of releases."
Not so, red-faced corrections officials explained. The cause, they
said Wednesday, was a lack of envelopes.
"This is beyond ridiculous. It never should have happened," said
state parole director Bryan Collier, whose employees were responsible
for the goof.
Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice in Huntsville, said a chain of mistakes began when a parole
division office in Austin ordered envelopes in August, just before
the end of the fiscal year.
Because money from one fiscal year cannot be spent in another, the
order was cancelled.
"Someone was supposed to put in a new order," Collier said. "They
didn't."
By mid-October, the envelopes ran out.
And the required notices to trial-court officials of inmates'
impending parole began piling up.
"Someone should have been screaming that they needed envelopes,"
Collier said. "They didn't."
Late in the week before Thanksgiving, top parole officials found out.
They scoured stores in Austin and Houston, and rushed in truckloads
of envelopes, he said.
"We bought them on the spot market: wherever we could find them,"
Collier said.
Parole employees were marshaled to work overtime to get the
backlogged notices into the mail.
"We estimated there were about 29,000," Collier said, noting that the
agency mails as many as 400,000 of the notices to trial officials
each year to allow them to protest a pending parole.
Then, to answer recipients' calls about the paperwork flood, Collier
said, an explanation was quickly sent out.
For Bradley and others, the loaded mailboxes came two days after
legislative leaders suggested that thousands of prisoners might be
released early to solve an overcrowding crisis.
"It had the appearance initially of undue political pressure on the
parole board," Bradley said. "It looked like a flood of early
release."
Collier said an investigation is under way that could result in
disciplinary action, even terminations. It is expected to be
completed within a few days.
The office in which the glitch occurred, he confirmed, is the same
one that was criticized this year for not properly processing parole-
attorney fee affidavits, after the disclosure of problems by the
Austin American-Statesman.
"There's no excuse, in my opinion, for this," Collier said
Tuesday. "I've asked for an audit of that whole section, wall to
wall.
"Obviously, I was far from happy."
Neither is Bradley.
"We have to pull and review files and respond to the notices," he
said. "Now, I have a backlog I have to work through."
mward@statesman.com; 512-445-1712
The Daily Texan
Probation may be a problem in Texas' criminal justice system
Nolan Hicks and Ingrid Norton
At around 10:30 a.m., Darnell Walker opened the door to the
florescent waiting room of the Travis County Adult Probation
Department wearing all black: mid-length shorts, a button down T-
shirt and a baseball cap. He shuffled up to the payment window,
filled out a form and carefully unfolded a wad of 20s from his
wallet. He carried a weathered yellow folder bearing the Travis
County seal and the words Adult Probation and Community Supervision.
Walker has had the folder for the two years since he started
probation and will need it for three more, when he's expected to
complete his probation sentence.
"As long as I keep my head straight, I'll get through it fine," he
said, sitting in the probation office.
Walker said he was arrested in July 2004 for cocaine possession.
He'd been helping his cousin sell crack in northeast Austin for
about a week when undercover cops caught them, he said.
"It was a bad mistake," said Walker, a soft-spoken 25-year-old who
said he had never been arrested before and is confident he'll get
through probation fine. "They gave me another chance to be a better
person and to get it off my record."
Under Walker's five-year probation term, he can't drink or do any
drugs, and he has to meet with an officer once a month, stay
employed and pay $60 monthly in supervision fees. His sentence is
one of the most lenient possible for possession of a controlled
substance.
According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's most recent
2003 statistics, there were 238,209 people who, like Walker, were on
probation for five to 10 years for felonies. With an additional
196,303 people who have committed misdemeanors, the total number of
probates in Texas was nearly 450,000 at that time.
With state criminal justice budgets increasingly stretched and a
prison population that has tripled over the past decade, the
question of who should be on probation and for how long is becoming
more and more pressing.
"There are too many people for the officers to keep track," said Ana
ñez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice
Coalition, a prison reform advocacy group. "Each probation officer
has to look at 150 cases."
Texas has longer probation supervision than any other state in the
country. The profits Texas receives from supervision fees provide an
incentive for the state to maintain long probation periods, ñez-
Correa said. She said there is a reluctance to let people off their
probation early, even if they have complied with supervision
restrictions.
"Probation profits from those on it," ñez-Correa said. "They
don't let people off early."
According to a study by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the
state collects $1.13 for every dollar it spends on probation.
Tony Fabelo, a prison analyst who used to head Texas' Criminal
Justice Policy Council, said the whole probation system must be
rearranged to give priority to supervising violent offenders,
rehabilitating drug users and making sure the rest comply with
probation rules. He said right now there are too many probates for
officers to prioritize. For example, under the current system,
offenders only fill out forms on their first visit.
"We have a probation system that in general is badly organized,"
Fabelo said, sitting in the Starbucks on San Antonio and 15th
streets, a few blocks from the probation office. "It's a big
paperwork processing machine. They're not supervising these people."
Fabelo noted that Texas' supervision terms of up to 10 years are the
longest of any state, contributing to high caseloads. The result is
that not enough attention goes to new probates. With such long
supervision periods, probates also have more chances to mess up, he
said.
Probates who break the terms of probation are sent to jail. A recent
Texas Public Policy Foundation study reported that 41 percent of
state jail intakes were revoked from probation. Half of those were
revoked for a "technical" reason, such as having a beer or missing a
meeting. The study, conducted last year, reported that the average
length of probation in Texas is 67 months, or about five-and-a-half
years, nearly two years longer than the national average.
As Fabelo greeted politicians and consultants coming in and out of
the coffee shop for their morning lattes, he said legislators are
now more willing to try things like probation reform as an effort to
solve prison overcrowding. In the late '80s, the last time Texas'
prisons began to overcrowd, the emphasis was on building prisons, he
said.
"Building prisons is very appealing, because it's quick," he
said. "When you do it enough, you get the feeling that there's more
to it than that, and we have legislators who've been here for 10 or
15 years who know that."
Back to where we were in the '80s
"We were full back then, and we're full today," said Rodney Cooper,
deputy director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which
oversees prisons.
When Cooper started as a correctional officer in 1978, there were 16
prison units scattered throughout East Texas. Today, there are 105,
stretching from Jasper to El Paso, according to the department. With
nearly 150,000 inmates today, six times Texas' prison population of
25,000 in 1978, Texas' prison system is second in size only to the
federal government's.
"Back then, there were 15 or so staff members to a shift," Cooper
said. "Today, you might have 50."
Part of the prison system's expansion resulted from the 1980 case
Ruiz v. Estelle. The court ruled that certain enforcement practices
and inmate overcrowding in Texas' prison system violated inmates'
civil rights. One measure ruled against was the "building tender"
system, in which inmates would be appointed by the wardens to help
keep the peace.
When Cooper came on in the late '70s, it wasn't unusual for three
inmates to share a two-person cell, because there weren't strict
capacity limits. After the case, room capacity limits were put in
place, and prisons struggled to find room for all the inmates and to
hire new staff to accommodate the law's requirements. At the same
time, Texas' population kept rising. The federal "war on drugs"
initiative also contributed to the influx of prisoners.
During this transitory period in the mid-'80s, Cooper remembers at
one point having 20-inmate tents set up around the parameter fence
at Huntsville to make up for bed shortages.
"You literally ran out of room," said Keith Price, who started as a
correctional officer 30 years ago and retired as warden in 2003.
Price, who is currently an assistant criminal justice professor at
West Texas A&M in Canyon, remembers a time in the late '80s when one
inmate getting discharged from the prison hospital would cause
frantic phone calls to find an extra bed.
"You get to the point where a handful of people will put things into
a crisis," he said. "We weren't quite at that point when I left [in
2003], but we were getting there. I'm sure it's happening all the
time today."
Price said the system stabilized after the prison building boom in
the early '90s, but that continued convictions have caused the
population to keep climbing.
"Right now, we're back to where we were in the '80s," he said. '"The
problem was that we kept sending people to prison, and that's where
we are today."
"You can't lock everybody up," said James Marquart, a criminology
professor and director of the crime and justice studies program at
UT-Dallas. At this point, it costs about $40 a day to keep someone
incarcerated. With 169,110 inmates, according to the 2004
statistics, this amounts to $6.7 million per day and $2.4 billion
annually. For this reason, the system needs to prioritize who is put
in jail, he said.
"We need to cream off the less risky people and find something to do
with them, Marquart said.
Marquart said one of the ways to do that is to put less risky people
on probation instead of in prison.
Reform efforts during the 79th Legislature aimed to do that,
including House Bill 2193, vetoed by Gov. Rick Perry in June 2005.
The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, and
state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, previous chairman of the Senate
Criminal Justice Committee, meant to head off prison overcrowding.
Provisions of the bill included decreasing the maximum period of
probation from 10 years to five and provided incentives to encourage
the early release of well-behaved probates, Madden said. It would
also provide probation instead of jail time for non-violent third-
degree felonies, often drug offenses.
Geraldine Nagy, director of adult probation for Travis County, has
elected to adopt many of the changes in the bill. Nagy said long
supervision terms are not effective because most people who re-
offend do so within the first two or three years of being put on
probation. Under her tenure, the Travis County probation office has
launched a program to profile the probation population to determine
which group needs the county's limited resources the most, she said.
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley disagrees with
probation reform. He said weakening third-degree felony statutes
will put criminals back on the streets. He said the state has
sufficient resources to supervise probates for 10 years, and it
should continue to do so and build more prisons.
"That state continues to grow," Bradley said. "As it does, criminals
move here, and we need a place to put them."
Madden still believes he can find a better solution after consulting
with objecting district attorneys and the governor's office. He is
confident a compromise can be reached this legislative session, when
he plans to reintroduce his bill.
© Copyright 2006 The Daily Texan
Justice system under fire
Prisons packed because of board's reluctance to parole, lack of
treatment programs, panel says.
By Mike Ward
Thousands of prison convicts eligible for parole are filling crowded
prisons because the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has not
followed its own parole guidelines and because alcohol- and drug-
treatment programs are not available, members of a state panel
charged Tuesday.
"If you'd just followed your own guidelines, we wouldn't have a
(prison) capacity problem right now," state Sen. John Whitmire, D-
Houston, told parole officials during a daylong hearing by the
Sunset Advisory Commission that was punctuated by intense criticism
of Texas' justice system.
Texas' 153,000 prison beds are full, and the state is leasing about
1,500 additional beds from county jails.
The sunset commission, which periodically reviews state agencies and
recommends changes, has in hand a staff report that concludes the
state's seven parole board members and 12 parole commissioners do
not follow their own guidelines in deciding who is freed and who is
not, especially when it comes to low-risk convicts.
In addition, parole approval rates vary widely in each of the six
offices across the state on the same types of cases. Several
commission members said that means that one burglar might be paroled
when another may not, even if the cases are similar.
"Justice means truly equal," commission member Howard Wolf of
Houston said. "We do not have a just system."
Parole board Chairwoman Rissie Owens of Huntsville defended the
varied approval rates and said the guidelines were never meant to be
a mandate on which cases were to be approved. That should be left to
the discretion of board members, she said.
Responded Whitmire, the longtime chairman of the Senate committee
that oversees prison and parole programs: "But the guidelines were
established so we wouldn't have the disparities we're seeing now. If
you're in Angleton, you get one kind of treatment. If you're in
Amarillo, you get another."
The public hearing was to have focused on a Sunset staff report
that, in a departure from past practice, recommends that the
Legislature spend tens of millions of dollars more for
rehabilitation programs and bolster early-release and prison-
diversion programs, instead of building several expensive prisons.
But the details of how the current system is failing to rehabilitate
offenders in increasing numbers, or even to follow its own mandates,
quickly sparked an intense debate, which could be a precursor of
what the Legislature will face when it convenes in January.
If the state builds new prisons, the price tag will probably be more
than $100 million in what officials agree is only a temporary
solution. Once those beds fill up, even more prisons will be needed.
And the state will need more correctional officers too, even though
it is more than 2,200 short already because of low pay and
unfavorable working conditions.
If lawmakers chose to beef up rehab and treatment programs, the
price promises to be almost as high. But members of the commission
insisted that the choice is a no-brainer.
"We need to start putting our money into bricks and mortar and start
putting it into programs that reduce recidivism in this state," said
state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio, a member of the
commission. "You pay now, or you pay later."
But, cautioned Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham: "It's unrealistic to
say there will be a day when we don't have to build prisons."
The growing population of Texas means more prison beds will be
needed to house the dangerous, violent offenders who should be off
the street, she said.
"But if we were to get the people out of those beds who really don't
need to be there, who are backlogged there because we don't have
enough treatment programs, who are bedridden or terminal, we would
have enough beds to take care of that growth — right now," Whitmire
suggested.
"Nine hundred people who have been approved for parole are still in
prison, because we don't have the treatment beds for them," he said.
"It's a horrible waste of money."
Commission members quizzed Brad Livingston, executive director of
the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, who said that the agency
supports significantly more funding for rehabilitation and treatment
programs — for the first time in more than decade. Prison officials
have requested such in their budget request, he noted.
The commission's report also recommends that a special legislative
committee be created to gather and track data on criminal justice
trends, replacing a similar agency that was abolished in 2003.
Without that information, there is no effective way to plan for the
future, according to the report.
At several points during the debate, members questioned whether the
parole program should be separated from the prisons agency.
Commission Chairman Kim Brimer, a state senator from Fort Worth,
questioned at one point whether the panel should consider drafting
legislation to totally overhaul the corrections system, but no vote
was taken.
mward@statesman.com; 445-1712
Average parole approval rates by region, 2005
Parole panel Average approval rate Average approval
for high-risk inmate for low-risk inmate
Amarillo 8% 43%
Source: Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, 2005 annual report
Find this article at:
Nov. 14, 2006
Parole board blamed for prison crowding
Associated Press
AUSTIN — Texas prisons are overcrowded with thousands of unnecessary
inmates because the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles hasn't
followed its own parole guidelines for releasing prisoners, a state
panel said Tuesday.
Members of the Sunset Advisory Commission, which periodically
reviews state agencies and recommends changes, told the parole board
in a hearing in Austin that a lack of alcohol and drug treatment
programs was another contributing factor to the overcrowding problem.
Texas has 153,000 prison beds but has had to lease another 1,500
prison beds from county jails to accommodate the number of inmates,
the Austin American-Statesman reported in its online editions
Tuesday.
"If you'd just followed your own guidelines, we wouldn't have a
(prison) capacity problem right now," said state Sen. John Whitmire,
D-Houston.
Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice, said the agency is asking for money to pay for
more rehabilitation and treatment programs.
Sunset commission members also said the parole approval rates vary
greatly across the state, meaning similar cases will get different
treatment depending on where they occur.
"Justice means truly equal," commission member Howard Wolf said. "We
do not have a just system."
Rissie Owens, chairman of the parole board, defended the approval
rates. She said the guidelines should be left to the discretion of
board members and aren't a mandate.
"We need to start putting our money into bricks and mortar," said
state Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, D-San Antonio. "You pay now or you
pay later."
HoustonChronicle.com
Program focuses on probationers' mental health
'Smarter' justice also aims to ease jail crowding
One afternoon earlier this month, state District Judge Marc Carter
bounded down from his courtroom bench, grabbed several defendants in
bearhugs and congratulated them for completing three months of
probation. Then he handed them diplomas.
"I'm proud of every one of you," Carter said as probationers and
their family members applauded and joked.
It was an uncommon sight in a Harris County felony courtroom, where
judges, draped in black robes, rarely speak to defendants and
normally step down from the bench only during recesses.
But Carter's friendliness is routine in the county's fledgling
mental health court, an intensive supervision program that was
started in March to help people with mental health problems complete
their probation and continue treatment.
Officials also hope the new program eventually will help ease
crowding in the county jail and state prisons, where probation
violators often end up.
"It's win-win for everybody," said Kathleen Williams, manager of
special programs for the county's Community Supervision and
Corrections Department.
Carter volunteered to help preside in mental health court at the
request of state District Judge Mark Kent Ellis, who helped develop
the program and splits the caseload with Carter. Thus far, 32 people
have been enrolled in the yearlong program.
Ellis, who worked with county probation and mental health officials
for more than a year to develop the program, said prisons and jails
offer mental health treatment, but more effective care is available
from county social services.
In Harris County, he said, about 40 percent of the people on
probation get it revoked for violating requirements of their
release. The revocation rate is only about 20 percent among mental
health probation cases.
That figure jumped to about 30 percent in 2004, however, at least
partly because of shortages in staff and funding, Ellis said. The
increase prompted county officials to look for a remedy, and the
more personal, intensive approach of mental health court resulted.
Ellis said he expects the new program to reduce revocation rates.
"This is about having judges get more personally involved in
probationers' lives to help prevent them from going to prison," he
said.
Personal contact
Emphasizing the importance of personal contact in working with the
probationers, Carter said that stepping down from the bench and
listening to their concerns shows that he cares about them. Such
interaction motivates them to stay out of trouble and complete
probation, he said.
He added, however, that he won't hesitate to deliver a tongue-
lashing, and even jail them, if they refuse to comply with the
program's requirements.
"It's not softer criminal justice," Carter said. "It's smarter."
The program can accommodate up to 100 people at a time, Williams
said. Participants must be part of the department's mental health
caseload as well as be enrolled in the New Start program at the
county Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority. They also
must have a history of difficulty complying with probation
requirements.
And they must be diagnosed with schizophrenia, major depression,
bipolar disorder or impaired functioning because of mental
conditions, and they must have at least two years' probation
remaining.
Sex offenders and people convicted of crimes involving a death are
not eligible.
Williams said four probation officers provide intensive,
personalized support for the court's participants.
They meet individually with them and their mental health workers as
often as weekly, and make sure they appear in court when needed. If
the probationers fail to show up, the probation officers find them,
she said.
Follow-up care
Williams said mental health court is part of a county probation
program dubbed Change Through Intervention, an effort by judges and
probation officials to have more personal contact with those having
trouble following probation rules.
Judges meet with probationers and their case managers regularly as a
way of heading off problems that could lead to violations, and jail.
The county's drug court, another effort at compassionate
intervention, offers probation violators a chance to avoid jail by
completing substance-abuse treatment in special lockdown facilities.
"When (judges) stay up on the bench, it's like they don't care, like
they don't have a concern about what's going to happen to you or
not," said Brian Burk, 32, who is on probation for a drug conviction
and in treatment for what he described as anger management.
"When (Judge Carter) comes down from the bench, he shows us more
respect that he thinks we are more than just criminals. It makes
me feel better."
dale.lezon@chron.com
June 16, 2006, 12:42AM
By CLAY ROBISON
AUSTIN - With a new report forecasting continued prison crowding, a
key legislative chairman said Thursday that the state may need to
consider a small increase in the parole rate.
Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, chairman of the House Corrections
Committee, said a limited number of additional paroles could be
approved without endangering public safety. The goal is to help the
state avoid the multimillion- dollar expense of building and staffing
new prisons.
"I don't think we'll be turning out any more dangerous people than
we are now," he said, adding that he was "very happy" with how the
parole program is conducted.
Madden said he also wants to continue strengthening local probation
departments to reduce the number of people sent to prison. More than
150,000 inmates are in state prisons now.
If the state doesn't build new prisons or take other steps to expand
capacity, such as leasing additional space in county jails, the
prison population will exceed operating capacity by 9,600 beds in
fiscal 2010, the Legislative Budget Board projected in a report
released this month.
Although the shortfall is less than predicted last year, Madden said
the Legislature must act quickly to either curb the growth in
prisoners or start building.
Just one new maximum security prison with a 2,250-inmate capacity
would cost about $250 million to build and additional millions to
staff and operate, he said.
Madden said the parole rate is now about 27 percent of inmates who
are eligible, down from 30 percent in 2003 and 2004. The Legislative
Budget Board has estimated that an increase of 2 percent from the
current level would eliminate the need for any new prisons by 2010,
he said.
Even with that increase, parole rates would still be much lower than
they were in the late 1980s, when Texas had a severe shortage of
prison space and the prison system was under the control of a
federal court order that limited the inmate population.
At that time, hundreds of convicts were released each week,
including murderers and other violent offenders, some of whom soon
committed new crimes. The parole rate peaked at about 80 percent in
1990, before then-Gov. Ann Richards ordered the Board of Pardons and
Paroles to clamp down on early releases in 1991.
The Legislature also overhauled criminal justice laws and spent $3
billion in voter-approved bonds to build new prisons.
Andy Kahan, the Mayor Bill White's crime victims advocate, isn't
eager to see more paroles.
"That's the parole board's discretion," he said. "They played a
great role in the reduction of crime in Texas by not releasing
people convicted of crimes early, and we're hopeful that trend will
continue."
Madden said he doesn't envision a return to the 1980s' conditions.
He said progress against further prison crowding already is being
made through probation improvements.
"The good news is that probation departments are decreasing the
revocation rates and increasing early discharges. That means we are
slowing the spillover of probationers being sent to prison," he said.
Madden said the Legislature last year approved about $54 million to
help improve probation services, including increased treatment and
aftercare for alcohol and drug abusers.
The crime rate declined from a peak in 1988 and has remained steady
at a lower level since 2000, the Legislative Budget Board reported.
Earlier this week, however, the FBI reported increases in violent
crime in 2005, including a 2.4 percent increase in Houston.
clay.robison@ chron.com
AUSTIN AMERICAN STATESMAN
Checking in on parole lawyers is a good step
Monday, June 12, 2006
Bryan Collier, the state's parole director, did right this week by
announcing that his agency will start enforcing the law not
against parolees, but for attorneys who represent prisoners seeking
parole. As the law has long required, those attorneys will now be
required to file reports that disclose who they represent before the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and how much they charge.
Such reports are supposed to provide a check on lawyers who
represent prisoners trying to make parole. Parole board members
operate in a highly secretive process that makes it easy for an
unscrupulous lawyer to charge a prisoner's family an enormous sum
based on promises that he has backdoor access to that process.
In fact, because the state has not enforced the law, some prisoners
might have been ripped off by people who were not even lawyers. In
April, a former convict from Dallas was returned to prison after he
was accused of cheating inmates and their families seeking help for
parole. And state officials are investigating two firms suspected of
cheating clients.
The disclosure law was enacted in 1947 after a scandal, and there
have been scandals since involving paroles promised through
supposed "connections" with parole board members and employees.
Parole officials previously said they had no power to enforce the
law. But reporting on this sorry situation by the American-
Statesman's Mike Ward forced a re-examination of that "we can do
nothing" attitude.
And while we're on the subject of prisoners let's bring back the
Criminal Justice Policy Council, or something like it. It was
abolished in 2003 in a short-sighted money-saving move by Gov. Rick
Perry. The council provided state officials and the public with in-
depth studies and projections of the prison population.
Such a group might not seem particularly necessary, but key
legislators who have had to live without it want it back. State Rep.
Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, chairman of the House Corrections
Committee, said the state needs "a study group that will help us
better project future growth."
Such projections are needed so the state can decide how to spend the
hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars it might need to
build new prisons and hire more guards. The state's 110 prisons are
full, with 152,000 inmates.
While the prisons are not yet overcrowded, they've been chronically
understaffed. And as Ward revealed previously, 761 Texas Department
of Criminal Justice employees were arrested on various charges last
year, and the number this year is on pace to be even worse. There
are other signs of a growing crisis: A prisoner was killed and three
others injured just this month in a gang feud.
Texas spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s contending with a
lawsuit challenging the its overcrowded prisons and many of its
policies, such as using prisoners for guards. It took a huge, costly
expansion of the prison system to resolve it.
Madden wrote the governor that the state needs a well-staffed unit
a separate agency, a contract with a private entity or perhaps a
university to gather and analyze criminal justice trends. The
governor is non-committal, but Madden and Sen. John Whitmire, D-
Houston, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, are
right in calling for such a unit.
One way the state once relieved prison overcrowding was to start
letting too many prisoners out too early on parole. The result was
more crime victims. Let's not go there again.
Probation situation bad & getting worse
05-28-2006
By RICHARD ORR
“It ain’t pretty.“
That’s Adult Probation Director Bill Coleman’s assessment of funding cuts that are gutting probation departments across the state, forcing many of them to drop programs and trim personnel in what he believes is a penny-wise, pound-foolish fashion.
Funding for basic supervision in Coleman’s three- county jurisdiction — Hale, Swisher and Castro — fell from $341,478 in 2004 to $290,452 last year.
State funding is geared to the number of people on probation, and it went up slightly in 2003 due to a higher number of felony and misdemeanor probationers that year.
“We’re getting about the same money from the state today as we got in 1989,” said Coleman.
As a result, he’s had to drop the day-reporting center, where hardcore probationers had to report on a daily basis. He’s also dropped parenting classes. And come June 30, he’ll shuck the GED and English as a Second Language programs, which had been dropped earlier in Swisher and Castro counties.
He also cut two part-time crew supervisors in the community service project and didn’t fill two full-time positions that came open.
In 2001, he dropped one fulltime officer in Hale County and has implemented several other, smaller cuts along the way.
His department now operates with nine officers — down from 12 in the past four years — six clerical staff, Coleman and one full-time community service supervisor to handle a misdemeanor and felony caseload that totaled 1,900 at the close of 2005.
The 122 probation departments across Texas currently receive a total of $98 million a year from the state for basic supervision purposes, compared to Lubbock ISD’s annual budget of $103 million to operate one school district.
In an effort to make up for the loss of state money, courts have been allowed to assess higher and higher fees on probationers to the point where some defendants who are eligible for probation can’t afford it.
In the case of misdemeanor probation, the state only covers six months when the average stay is 21 months. So after six months, the only income the department sees is from probation fees.
“We charge $40 and are allowed $60, which may have to soon start charging — as much as I’d hate to. Some defendants choose to serve out their time in jail, which costs $38 a day, or prison at $44 a day,” said Coleman, adding that by way of comparison, it costs $2.13 a day to keep someone on probation — with $1.16 of that coming from probationers themselves in the form of fees.
“In too many cases,“ he added, “those who go to prison leave behind a family that winds up on welfare. Society loses the tax money the defendant had been paying when working and, worst of all, their children are more likely to wind up getting in trouble with the law.
“At a minimum, probationers pay $80 to $100 a month in fines, fees, court costs and restitution. For some, it amounts to several hundreds of dollars a month.“
According to the May issue of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, from 1988 to 2004 the prison population in Texas has climbed 278 percent to a current total of about 150,000 inmates.
At the present rate of incarceration, it’s been estimated that 14,000 new prison beds will have to be built by 2010 — with construction costs placed at $1.24 billion and operating costs pegged at $224 million annually for the extra beds alone.
It’s been estimated that half the people in prison today are there as a result of willing transactions between consenting adults.
“It’s the violent, hardcore murderers, rapists and child molesters that belong in prison,” said Coleman. “If the state would put more money into probation, it would be less likely to need more prisons. We save the state $43 a day. And all we have to do to be successful is not make the person any worse than when they came through the door.
“Prison is certainly going to make them worse. The longer you stay in prison, the more likely you are to come out violent and more apt to commit more crimes. It’s supported by dozens of studies.”
Austin American Statesman
Texas' closed parole system is open to trouble
EDITORIAL BOARD
After some prodding by this newspaper, the parole division of the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice will reconsider whether it has
the power to enforce a law that requires lawyers for state prisoners
applying for parole to disclose information on their work.
For some time, the division's stance has been that it does not have
that power, which made it easier for scam artists to exploit
prisoners and their families. Recent articles by American-Statesman
reporter Mike Ward have exposed such problems in the parole system.
Although the review might bring about a bit more disclosure, the
Legislature ought to consider opening the entire process of applying
for parole to much more public scrutiny. Some limited secrecy might
be justified — to protect crime victims who object to a parole
application, for example — but keeping the process entirely
confidential is an invitation to trouble.
Currently, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles considers all
applications for parole from state prisoners behind closed doors. A
prisoner's prison record, recommendations and comments from judges,
prosecutors and law enforcement officials and any pleas or
recommendations from the prisoner's family and friends are kept
confidential. And the three-member panels that consider the
applications — about 70,000 a year — also meet behind closed doors.
There's supposed to be an exception to the secrecy: Lawyers hired by
a prisoner or his family to help win parole are supposed to file
periodic reports ("fee affidavits") that disclose the name of the
client and the fee paid. They are also supposed to file an annual
summary.
But as Ward showed in Sunday's article, the law is not being
enforced. Too many lawyers are filing incomplete reports or no
reports at all. When asked why, the parole division said it didn't
have any legal power to enforce the law. But now Bryan Collier,
parole division director, is taking another look.
The fee affidavits and annual summaries are supposed to give the
state a handle on overseeing a lucrative business, one vulnerable to
fraud and influence peddling. The secrecy of the parole process
helps those who claim they — for a fee — have some access to those
behind the closed doors, and families desperate to get a loved one
out of prison are sometimes ripe for being ripped off.
As Ward recounted, Texas has a history of pardon and parole scandals
going back at least to the 1930s. But the problem isn't just
historical. Officials now are investigating Andy Bob Coats, a
convicted Dallas con man accused of taking thousands of dollars from
prisoners to help them win parole. Yet Coats was on parole himself;
it was revoked this month.
Parole is a privilege, not a right, granted to people who stand
convicted of a crime, some extremely serious. Decisions on whether
to return them to society are clearly of public interest, and those
decisions should be based on the public interest, not whether the
prisoner hired the right lawyer with the right connections.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Board of Pardons
and Paroles are up for review this year by the state's Sunset
Advisory Commission, giving lawmakers a great opportunity to examine
this secrecy in detail.
Lawmakers could build public confidence in the parole process by
taking most of the secrecy out of it. Meanwhile, the parole division
could start by enforcing what little disclosure law there is.
KLTV 7 Tyler-Longview-Jacksonville, TX:
Poor disclosure rates plague parole system, newspaper finds
AUSTIN A newspaper investigation reveals that the state's secretive
parole system has poorly enforced a disclosure law that's designed
to prevent inmates from being scammed with promises of early release.
The Austin American-Statesman reports that dozens of parole
attorneys have ignored a mandate that requires them to submit forms
listing their clients and fees.
The forms are virtually the public's only way to see which attorneys
legally perform consulting work.
The secrecy that shrouds the parole process in Texas drives many
inmates and families to hire attorneys who claim to know their way
around the system.
Parole officials have praised the disclosure law as the best way for
families to avoid being ripped off by illegal consultants. At least
three-point-six (M) million dollars in fees were collected by parole
attorneys last year.
The state's top parole official said the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice will review its previous stance that the
agency was powerless to enforce the mandate.
Copyright 2006 Associated Press.
Parole system shrouds frauds
Poor enforcement of disclosure law hides 'consultants' who rip off
inmates, families.
By Mike Ward
Sunday, May 21, 2006
The enigmatic process that determines which Texas prison inmates
should be set free on parole has long been prone to eruptions of
scandal and corruption.
Shrouded in secrecy and buffeted by politics, the system is largely
ignored by the public until it boils over and brings down a governor
or spawns criminal charges.
The volcano appears to be rumbling again.
A Dallas ex-con has been sent back to prison amid allegations that
he bilked inmates and their families with false promises to help
prisoners win parole. In recent weeks, state investigators have
expanded their probe to include two other firms suspected of using
the secretive nature of the parole process to cheat clients.
As the investigations blossom, an Austin American-Statesman analysis
shows that state parole officials appear to have little control over
the network of attorneys - and hucksters - who ply the secret byways
of the parole process trying to affect which murderers, rapists,
drug dealers or embezzlers get out of jail early.
State supervision of this little-known multimillion-dollar industry
rests largely on a single requirement - that attorneys hired to help
inmates gain parole file regular reports showing whom they are being
paid to represent.
What might seem like an insignificant exercise in paper-shuffling is
actually much more: It is the only way for parole officials to track
what has become a lucrative business rife with opportunities for
fraud and influence peddling. It is the only way inmates and their
families might know who is legally doing consulting work and to
presumably protect themselves from getting ripped off. And it is one
small check that might afford the public some assurance that the
system is not improperly paroling dangerous convicts.
Failing to disclose the basic information required is a misdemeanor.
At least, it's supposed to be.
An American-Statesman review of all disclosure filings in the past
year shows that dozens of attorneys ignore the mandate, including
many being paid by the state to represent convicts in some hearings.
Some offer written excuses for their failure to comply: They lost
their files, their clients won't let them say or they didn't have
time to tally up the information.
One lawyer's excuse: He's old and can't remember.
Officials in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's parole
division who oversee the program initially insisted they have no
power to enforce the law. But after learning of the Statesman's
findings, state Parole Division Director Bryan Collier said he has
ordered that stance reviewed.
"Our position is and has been that we didn't have the authority or
the capability to enforce this statute, and we are now reviewing
that to see if that is, in fact, a correct position," he said. "If
we're supposed to be doing it, we should be doing it right."
Longtime parole consultants agree.
"It's a mess," said William Habern, a veteran Huntsville parole
attorney who has been complying with the law for 30 years. "If they
enforced this law, there is no telling how many people they might
find, how many lawyers are doing parole work and not registering,
how many who aren't lawyers are doing parole work illegally and how
many are charging exorbitant fees for little or nothing.
"It's just another example of how the parole system in Texas is sick
beyond the telling of it, from top to bottom," he added.
The Board of Pardons and Paroles - its seven members appointed by the
governor - and 12 parole commissioners hired by the board considered
more than 70,000 of the state's 148,000 inmates for parole in fiscal
year 2005 and granted parole to 19,582 - just under 28 percent.
Under state law, every scrap of paper filed and every record of
parole deliberations save for the final vote is secret, so there is
no way to know how decisions are made.
Given the enormous flow of cases, board members may spend less than
a minute considering each one when they deliberate individually, in
offices around the state. So many inmates, or their families, hire
consultants, who claim a higher success rate for their clients than
inmates navigating the process by themselves. The consultants file
briefs or argue before the board.
The disclosure law is the public's only window into an otherwise
opaque system.
On the books for decades, the disclosure requirement was touted just
last month by state officials as an important way Texans could avoid
rip-offs, as authorities investigated Andy Bob Coats, a convicted
Dallas con man accused of scamming hundreds of prison inmates and
their families out of perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars - all
while he was on parole himself.
That was much the same reason that legislators, alarmed by the close
relationship between the board and "professional clemency seekers,"
enacted the disclosure law almost 60 years ago. In response to
continuing questions about the system's integrity, lawmakers tweaked
the statute in 1989 and 1993.
Parole consulting is a tight-knit business where it is not unusual
for officials to switch sides, from making decisions to trying to
influence them. For that reason, lawmakers have consistently thought
it a good idea for the public to know who was on which side - and
how much they were charging.
"I look at people who are getting a lot of business to see if there's
anything our agency is doing that they're getting rich off of, that
we need to change," Collier said.
At issue are the so-called "fee affidavits" and annual disclosure
reports filed with parole officials. Under state law, an attorney
representing an inmate on a parole matter must file a one-page
affidavit disclosing the client and fee paid. By Jan. 31 each year,
the attorneys must also file a summary of the previous year's
clients, how much they were paid and whether they are a former
prison or parole board member or employee, or have associations or
relationships with any.
Records obtained under the Texas Public Information Act show that
even attorneys who are filing are not complying with the law.
In all, 535 attorneys filed disclosure forms with the parole agency
for last year, showing they collected at least $3.6 million in fees
ranging from less than $100 a case to more than $15,000. That bought
representation in about 3,700 parole cases.
More than 80 of the 535 attorneys who filed the disclosure reports
did not list either clients or compensation as required by the law.
At least 15 of those were under contract with the parole board,
according to the state filings.
Many left the forms blank. Others insisted they could not recall who
their clients were or said the parole board had the names already.
"I have no idea," one Fort Worth attorney wrote on his 2006
disclosure form.
On his form for 2005, Grand Prairie attorney Paul Leech said he
represented "one person in Tarrant County whose name I cannot
remember. At 73 my recollection is poor."
Leech said he answered that way because the parolee's case went on
so long that he was unsure which year it came before the board, and,
after searching his files for details without success, he had to
make the filing deadline.
"Families shop around for someone who can promise, 'We can handle
this. We have a great success rate,' " he said. "Most have been on
the parole board or say they have some influence with them."
Dozens more did not list their compensation. Some answered nly "yes"
or listed their billable rate instead of the specific fee, as
required. One answered "reasonable attorney's fee." Another: "Info
unavailable." Others cited attorney-client confidentiality. Another
said she could not provide details "since I have direct deposit and
am not informed as to the amount of compensation I receive for each
parolee."
Many who did not list their compensation are paid by taxpayers to
represent inmates at parole revocation hearings, records show. Some
who filed the required disclosure reports gave no client names or
compensation. "See your records," one advised, echoing the
sentiments of several others.
In 2005, officials said, the parole board paid 234 attorneys more
than $733,600 in fees to do that work. Collier and other parole
officials said all should have submitted both fee affidavits and
annual reports, just like privately retained attorneys. "Before a
(parole revocation) hearing starts, the hearing officer makes sure
they have a fee affidavit on file," Collier said. "It's up to them
to file an annual report."
And even though state officials say the agency is supposed to ensure
attorneys' affidavits and annual reports are properly filled out,
they acknowledge that has not happened in many cases.
Along with attorneys' mistakes and omissions, the agency's paperwork
miscues added to the problems. The annual disclosure forms for 2005
noted that they"must be filed with the Parole Division no later than
January 31, 2002." The 2006 forms asked attorneys to list "all
offenders whom you have represented since January 1, 2001."
Several attorneys corrected the dates on the forms they filed.
Others tried to explain.
"I assume this is an old form," wrote Austin attorney Dan Green. "If
you need info from 2001, please let me know."
Collier and other officials concede the system may not be working as
it should.
Gatesville attorney Allen Place Jr., among those who meticulously
follow the disclosure law, is a former state representative who
wrote changes designed to beef up the law in 1993.
"The purpose of the registration is to know who is doing this work,
and, in light of recent events, that need is certainly still there,"
he said. "But perhaps the fee listing is no longer applicable. What
does it really show... unless you know how much work went into each
case, that all cases are different?"
Gary Cohen, a longtime Austin parole attorney, agrees. Cohen, who
discloses fees on affidavits and last year provided no fee detail on
his annual report, says the fee disclosure rule is "outdated and
redundant" and does little to enlighten the public.
"If the original intent of this law was to keep paroles from being
sold ... it serves no useful purpose now," said Cohen, echoing
sentiments of other lawyers. "No place in state law are attorneys
required to disclose specific fees like this, and even if you know
what someone charges, you still can't make any judgment about
whether qualified or reasonable services were provided.... In light
of recent events, that should be the goal."
Violations by former parole board members and parole employees are a
Class A misdemeanor, with a maximum punishment of a year in jail and
a $4,000 fine. Violations by attorneys are a Class C misdemeanor,
which has a maximum $500 fine.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice "does not have the
authority to enforce compliance," parole officials wrote in an e-
mail response to Statesman queries. Responsibility for "submission
of an annual representation summary rests with the person who is
required to register."
After further consideration, however, Collier said he is not so sure
of that and has referred the issue to agency attorneys "to see
exactly what authority we have."
mward@statesman.com; 445-1712
Pilot Program Helps Prepare Inmates for Return to Free World
Pilot Program Helps Prepare Inmates for Return to Free World Long-term prison inmates coming up for parole are often ill-equipped to return to the free world. A pilot program at a prison in Texas is helping these inmates transition to a life outside of prison walls.
Lovelady, TX (PRWEB) April 21, 2006 -- Maria (not her real name) had not seen her son for 12 years. But the 80-year-old mother was determined to get to East Texas where her son is an inmate at the Eastham Maximum Security Prison. The only problem was how to get there from her home in California. With no other family or friends to help, she did the only thing she could do. She set out by car-alone-to arrive in time to be with her son for a unique Easter celebration.
Called the Resurrection Family Celebration, 39 Eastham inmates-each serving sentences of at least 30 years for serious crimes-and 60 of their friends and family members came together in the prison gym on the Saturday before Easter to share a meal, laugh, cry and reconnect. The celebration was part of a new pilot program that helps offenders who are one year from being eligible for parole prepare for their eventual return to the free world. Dr. Paul Carlin conducts the program, known as Criminal Recovery and Relapse Prevention (CRRP).
Dr. Carlin developed the program as a way to give serious offenders the tools and support they need to thrive outside the prison environment. The program is based on Belief Therapy, a model Dr. Carlin developed that takes it's name from the premise that people's beliefs directly impact their actions. Dr. Carlin was recently honored with an award from the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice and a Texas House Resolution for his prison ministry work.
"We know that to make it on the outside, these men need the help and support of family, friends and the community they'll be returning to," said Dr. Carlin
Dr. Carlin is also developing a separate program to help parolees better adjust to their new lives. Called Reentry Crisis Counseling, it
is a modality aimed at intervening in situations that may result in the parolee being returned to prison.
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Posted on Mar. 22, 2006
Officials, advocacy groups call for probation reform
By JOHN MORITZ
AUSTIN — Even though Gov. Rick Perry vetoed legislation last year designed to ease restrictions on nonviolent offenders who are
placed on probation, lawmakers should try again to pass similar legislation to reduce prison crowding and help rehabilitate low-level
lawbreakers, a legislative panel was told Wednesday.
The House Corrections Committee heard testimony from probation officials and advocacy groups who said that closer monitoring of probationers and treatment programs for people with substance-abuse problems have gone a long way to keep nonviolent offenders from straying.
“Texas cannot sustain a broken probation system and the escalating cost of prison overcrowding,” said Ana Yanez Correa, who heads the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a watchdog group that monitors trends in prison, parole and probation policies.
Correa was an enthusiastic supporter of a
probation-overhaul measure that easily passed the Legislature last year but was vetoed by Perry after several prosecutors raised objections.
The bill would have reduced probation for some felonies from 10 years to five, boosted funding for drug courts and community-service programs, and given judges greater oversight over probationers. Supporters said the bill would lighten the workload of probation officers and lead to fewer probation revocations because of rule violations such as failing to pay fees.
In his veto message, Perry pointed out that the state budget lawmakers approved for the 2006-07 cycle contained money for several regions of the state to hire more probation officers and develop innovative programs to prevent offenders from having their probation revoked.
Tom Plumlee, who heads the Tarrant County adult probation offices and a statewide probation advisory panel, said the extra money has helped cut officers’ caseloads. But more must be done to change what he called the “culture of probation” that in some cases encourages officers to recommend revocation for minor transgressions.
“If somebody misses a [meeting with a probation officer], he goes to jail,” Plumlee said. But if an officer can find out why the probationer failed to report and can correct the behavior, the probationer will have a better chance of succeeding, he added.
“When you fix that part of it, you can make some positive changes,” said Plumlee, whose office oversees about 20,000 probationers.
The corrections committee is gathering information on what legislation it might offer when lawmakers return to Austin in January
for the regular legislative session. The earliest any bill could be filed is December.
The panel also heard testimony that the state’s 151,000-bed prison system is operating near capacity and that more money might be needed to lease space from local jails and private correctional facilities.
Bonita White, director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s community justice assistance division, told the panel that judges statewide have said the state needs additional drug-treatment programs for probationers.
“We need more substance-abuse treatment … so people don’t go from one violation to prison,” White said.
Plumlee said most cases that arrive at his office involve drug and alcohol abuse.
“Most of them are nonviolent property offenders,” he said. “And of course, drug use drives just about most everything.”
John Moritz, (512) 476-4294
© 2006 Star-Telegram.com and wire service sources.
Mar 14, 2006 7:26 pm US/Central
Park Cities Attorney Accused Of Parole Fraud
Ginger Allen
Norma McCain says she spent all her life savings
trying to set her beloved son free – to no avail. He
was serving 20 years for aggravated assault when the
phone rang in February 2005.
Before the call was over, McCain’s heart was in her
throat. It was someone who identified himself as “Bob
Johnson,” whom McCain said led her to believe he was a
lawyer from a parole consulting firm called Parole and
Probation Services.
The man carried a message of hope that seemed
unfathomable. She said Bob Johnson, whose signature
appears over a “Senior Partner” title in later
correspondence, promised he could probably get
McCain’s son paroled in “four or five months,” years
earlier than his first possible scheduled review. The
service would cost about $5,000.
“Being a desperate mother and fighting for eight years
hiring all these attorneys and investigators, and
nobody could do anything,” the White Settlement
resident said. “And Bob Johnson said they could do it
because they worked with the parole board.”
“I was real excited.”
But no attorney named Bob Johnson had ever registered
with the state prison system as representing her son,
as required by law. McCain said she eventually
realized that every promise delivered by the
Dallas-based Parole and Probations Services was a
hope-shattering lie, and in that belief she has much
company among other relatives of inmates.
A CBS 11 News investigation that began last summer
found that “Bob Johnson” is not a lawyer as many who
dealt with him say they were led to believe. In fact,
that’s not even his real name. Several former clients
have identified Bob Johnson from a prison mug shot as
Andrew Robert Coats, a seven-time convict with a
string of seven fraud convictions who has used aliases
before, court records show.
Coats’ convictions all involved con schemes, except an
eighth conviction he got for escaping a light-security
federal penitentiary. For one scheme, Coats was
convicted of securities fraud in Houston where
residents were bilked of hundreds of thousands of
dollars. In 1998, the Texas Attorney General
successfully sued him and his wife, Peggy Coats, for
$500,000 in restitution to victims of yet another
scheme.
Peggy Coats started Parole and Probation Services in
Dallas at about the time her husband was paroled from
a 12-year sentence in late 2002. It wasn’t long before
fraud complaints were once again dogging the couple.
In all, the business has taken in at least $450,000
from Texas inmates’ relatives scattered across the
country since Coats was paroled from prison, charging
fees ranging from $2,500 to more than $12,000.
It is illegal in Texas for any non-lawyer to represent
inmates in parole matters for pay, and any lawyer who
does has to register the relationship with the state.
It is also illegal for anyone who is not an attorney
to represent themselves as an attorney.
After CBS 11 began investigating complaints about the
company’s business practices last summer, a Park
Cities lawyer named Jeffrey Lee Fletcher stepped
forward and claimed to be handling the company’s legal
work. He now says he has completely taken over the
Coats family business, and hired the Coats as regular
employees, although state incorporation records still
do not show an ownership change.
As similar complaints continued to mount even after
the Snider Plaza lawyer got involved, both he and
Coats have now come under criminal investigation by
the Texas prison system’s Inspector General’s office,
officials this week confirmed.
Fletcher and Coats declined interview requests but
have released statements proclaiming that they are
victims of a conspiracy by anonymous troublemakers
campaigning, in part by email, to destroy their honest
business. “We have contacted Homeland Security
regarding these messages since the email source is
unknown,” Fletcher wrote in his.
They also say they’re willing to refund money to any
unsatisfied client and in fact have issued refunds to
several clients that CBS 11 has identified. However,
those clients received their refunds after either
filing complaints or threatening to go to the police.
In one letter to a client, Fletcher proposed that he
would provide a refund only if the client withdrew a
complaint she had filed with the Attorney General’s
office.
Fletcher this week promised to release a complete list
of all those who received refunds.
In his statement, Coats praised Fletcher, writing in
part: “It appears that the only thing these people
have to complain about is due to my history. It is not
fair to any of us, but especially not to Mr. Fletcher,
who is a tireless worker and advocate of those seeking
parole and a chance of a new life.”
In his statement to CBS 11 last week, Fletcher praised
Coats. “I found Bob to be a very proud man and a very
fair and honest man. It was not until you told me
about his past last summer that I became aware of his
history. Shortly thereafter, we met about it, and we
discussed everything about the matter and we have no
discussed it since and never will. His criminal past
is only something that someone could use to vilify or
hurt him as these people are trying to do. He has,
from day one, been as honest and fair with me as
anyone ever has been.”
A CASCADE OF COMPLAINTS
In all, CBS 11 has identified 19 mothers, fathers,
wives and inmates across Texas who allege that Bob
Coats, aka Bob Johnson, and more recently Fletcher,
took in fees that averaged between $3,000 and $7,000
each from dozens of clients by promising legally
implausible feats. When the first known clients began
complaining last summer, the men either threatened
defamation lawsuits, hurled personal insults or
claimed an ability to call down the wrath of friends
in high political office.
“I think that it’s terrible that this person, Bob
Coats, Bob Johnson – whoever he claims to be for the
moment – is taking advantage of inmate’s families when
he himself has been in the same predicament,” said
Melinda Sartain, a North Texas resident who believes
Coats and Fletcher made promises they knew they
couldn’t keep and ripped her off for thousands.
To no avail so far, a number of individuals who
identify themselves as victims have filed complaints
against Coats and Fletcher with the Dallas Police
Department’s swindle squad, the Texas Bar Association,
Dallas County District Attorney Bill Hill, and the
Texas Attorney General’s office, according to records
and interviews.
Common themes permeate the complaints, according to
interviews with a dozen clients and company
correspondence with them and many others. Chief among
these allegations is that PPS representatives:
Promised to seek “early parole review” for inmates
whose statutorily set review dates were still years in
the future. Parole lawyers, as well as current and
former board members say there is no such thing as
early parole review and that parole reviews can not be
moved forward in time by law, except in exceedingly
rare instances when an inmate is terminally ill and at
imminent risk of death.
Promised to seek “special parole review.” But the
experts say this process only exists in highly unique
circumstances, when an inmate has already had a review
and been denied parole and pertinent new information
surfaces that was not considered. Several PPS clients
who paid on the promise of obtaining special parole
review had never been up for parole, so “special
review” would not be legally available to them.
Led clients to believe they were in regular contact
with parole board members, who wield the power to
grant parole releases, about reviews that were still
years away. In several instances, Fletcher suggested
to clients that he had a relative on the board,
implying a special connection that could prove
decisive during a review. Former parole board members
and lawyers who specialize in dealing with the board
say it is highly unlikely that a board member would
ever communicate with a lawyer on a case that was not
actively under review.
“This is pretty atrocious,” said Daniel Lang, who
served on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles from
1995 through 2001. Land had just reviewed CBS 11’s
copies of PPS correspondence with clients, provided by
the clients.
“I’m seeing letters that imply that this firm can do
things that they are no, or cannot do,” Lang said.
“Often they do not come out and say they are meeting
with a board member but they imply they are in
constant contact with board members, and board members
and commissioners just do not have time to be in
constant contact.
“I think someone is instilling a lot of false hope and
sometimes false fear to get them to represent them in
a manner that they probably can’t deliver.”
FALSE STATEMENTS MADE
Parole and Probation Services continues to operate.
CBS 11 has uncovered numerous statements by PPS
representatives that have proven to be false.
For instance, in one letter to Norma McCain, Fletcher
wrote that he was personal friends with Attorney
General Greg Abbott and threatened to call “my buddy
Greg” to have him prosecute her for fraud after it
became known she was complaining about the company.
Fletcher was angry over an item that appeared in a
prison newsletter warning inmates about PPS and
listing her as a contact person for new complaints.
Fletcher mistakenly accused McCain of listing Abbott’s
address as her own and then accused her of criminally
impersonating the Attorney General. More than a dozen
inmates eventually wrote McCain at the home address
actually listed in the news item, claiming PPS made
promises, took their families’ money and claimed to do
work that was never done.
Fletcher wrote in an insult-laden letter to McCain
that Attorney General Abbott “is a friend of mine and
someone with whom we conduct business regularly
through other clients. My relatives have flown on his
corporate jet recently. So you really picked the wrong
state official to try and impersonate, don’t you
think?
“I would have some measure of respect for you if you
had had the guts enough to tell us what you were going
to do, but you have proven yourself not only a coward
but one who by her own sheer ignorance has drug up a
whole bunch of trouble for herself…Unless you send me
a letter of apology with a retraction…I will contact
my buddy Greg and have his office initiate a fraud
claim against you.”
A spokesperson for Abbott said the attorney general
has never heard of Jeffrey Fletcher.
In his first dealings with Norma McCain, Bob Coats
claimed he had gotten her name and telephone number as
a referral from the University of Houston’s Innocence
Project. A spokesperson for the Innocence Project,
however, said giving referrals to lawyers for profit
is strictly forbidden by policy. It remains unclear to
this day how Coats actually obtained McCain’s name and
phone number.
In another letter to McCain’s imprisoned son, Fletcher
wrote that he was not entitled to review his own
client file. From prison, Gregory McCain had grown
increasingly suspicious that PPS had accomplished none
of the tasks it had claimed and he demanded to see his
client file. In the file would have been records of
the work PPS claimed to have performed.
Fletcher wrote in a letter back that the inmate had no
right to the client file because it was “proprietary.”
“That’s a violation of the state bar rules,” said Bill
Haburn, a Huntsville-based lawyer who has run a parole
services legal practice for nearly three decades.
Asked to review CBS 11’s collection of letters between
PPS and clients who believe they were defrauded,
Haburn concluded that PPS’s Fletcher and Coats
routinely made misleading claims about what they could
do.
Especially disturbing, he said, was the fact that
Coats, a non-lawyer, appears to have accepted fees
while having Fletcher act as an attorney for the
parole work – a practice Haburn said did appear legal
under current law.
“Under 508.081 of the government code, only lawyers
can be paid a fee to represent someone before the
parole board, so they’ve got somebody who’s not a
lawyer accepting a fee to represent someone,” Haburn
said. “Now they may pay a lawyer to do the work, but I
think under the statute that’s probably illegal.”
OTHER QUESTIONS
CBS 11 found other apparent irregularities in the way
PPS has practiced. Under current law, all attorneys
representing inmates in parole matters are required to
file “lawyer fee affidavits” with the state prison
system. Records show that Coats has never filed such a
fee affidavit, but that Fletcher began doing so in
August 2005 with gusto, filing more than 90 through
the end of the year.
The records show that in many cases fee affidavits
Fletcher filed were for Coats clients who were taken
on many months earlier, and in some cases up to a year
or more earlier. For instance, inmate Rocky Wilson
hired PPS in October 2004 “to get me an early review,”
before Fletcher was involved in the company.
No fee affidavit for Wilson appeared for Wilson until
Fletcher filed one more than two years later, in
January of this year. Most of the affidavits are
notarized by Peggy Coats.
Clients who feel jilted by the company say they want
justice – and their money back. Several said they
investigated on their own and that they caught
Fletcher and Coats in a web of lies.
“It leaves a real bitter taste in your mouth when
someone is deliberately scamming you, lying to you,”
said J.J. Pankritz, who paid the company $2,000 of a
$4,800 fee before terminating the deal. “And I don’t
think he felt that anyone would do anything about it.”
Lisa Sampson eventually got her money back after a
series of confrontations and complaint filings. But
she said she is so angry over the deceit and pain
caused by her PPS dealings that she is still pushing
for justice.
“I’m going to make sure he doesn’t do it to anyone
else,” Sampson said of Bob Coats.
To comment on this story, email Todd Bensman
Overhaul of probation system urged
AUSTIN - Even though Gov. Rick Perry vetoed legislation last year
designed to ease restrictions on nonviolent offenders who are placed
on probation, lawmakers should try again to pass similar legislation
to reduce prison crowding and help rehabilitate low-level
lawbreakers, a legislative panel was told Wednesday.
The House Corrections Committee heard testimony from probation
officials and advocacy groups who said that closer monitoring of
probationers and treatment programs for people with substance-abuse
problems have gone a long way to keep nonviolent offenders from
straying.
"Texas cannot sustain a broken probation system and the escalating
cost of prison overcrowding," said Ana Yanez Correa, who heads the
Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a watchdog group that monitors
trends in prison, parole and probation policies.
Correa was an enthusiastic supporter of a probation-overhaul measure
that easily passed the Legislature last year but was vetoed by Perry
after several prosecutors raised objections.
The bill would have reduced probation for some felonies from 10 years
to five, boosted funding for drug courts and community-service
programs, and given judges greater oversight over probationers.
Supporters said the bill would lighten the workload of probation
officers and lead to fewer probation revocations because of rule
violations such as failing to pay fees.
In his veto message, Perry pointed out that the state budget
lawmakers approved for the 2006-07 cycle contained money for several
regions of the state to hire more probation officers and develop
innovative programs to prevent offenders from having their probation
revoked.
Tom Plumlee, who heads the Tarrant County adult probation offices and
a statewide probation advisory panel, said the extra money has helped
cut officers' caseloads. But more must be done to change what he
called the "culture of probation" that in some cases encourages
officers to recommend revocation for minor transgressions.
"If somebody misses a [meeting with a probation officer], he goes to
jail," Plumlee said. But if an officer can find out why the
probationer failed to report and can correct the behavior, the
probationer will have a better chance of succeeding, he added.
"When you fix that part of it, you can make some positive changes,"
said Plumlee, whose office oversees about 20,000 probationers.
The corrections committee is gathering information on what
legislation it might offer when lawmakers return to Austin in January
for the regular legislative session. The earliest any bill could be
filed is December.
The panel also heard testimony that the state's 151,000-bed prison
system is operating near capacity and that more money might be needed
to lease space from local jails and private correctional facilities.
Bonita White, director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's
community justice assistance division, told the panel that judges
statewide have said the state needs additional drug-treatment
programs for probationers.
"We need more substance-abuse treatment ... so people don't go from
one violation to prison," White said.
Plumlee said most cases that arrive at his office involve drug and
alcohol abuse.
"Most of them are nonviolent property offenders," he said. "And of
course, drug use drives just about most everything."
John Moritz, |
TDCJ has noted that medical expenses for the elderly and terminally ill "significantly exceed those for the typical offender," and yet the state continues to accrue health costs for this population instead of releasing eligible offenders on medical parole.
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