PAROLE DENIALS

Something I know a thing or two about. Following executive commutation of my life sentence in 1992, I had to wage a two year legal battle to secure my first parole hearing in July 1994. I was denied parole despite the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals calling me fully rehabilitated and the parole board chairman saying I was a “model of rehabilitation.” I had been locked up 29 years at the time.

The response of those opposing my release about my rehabilitation was: “So what.”

I would face five more parole denials (’95, ’97, ’99, 2001, and 2003) before I was granted parole at my seventh hearing in 2006.

So I understand what Eric and Lyle Menendez brothers are going through after their recent parole denials. Parole board member Julie Garland told Lyle to never give up hope—the ancient theory that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel so the tunnel is not forever. In parole terms, it means that hope is a way out of the tunnel of prison darkness if you stay focused on the light.

My response to the hope theory is this: well, Ms. Garland, hope is an elusive commodity in prison, even in those prisons with “special” amenities. That light at the end of the tunnel, more often than not, is a train that will run you into the ground.

To make matters worse, parole is a bullshit institution. Political appointees comprise the membership of parole boards. Members have little experience in the criminal justice system and even less experience with the prison system. They owe allegiance not to justice but to the governor that put them on the board—an easy, cushy, and even a profitable job assignment that comes with a fair measure of power, a host of free government perks, and the satisfaction of knowing they can impose their value judgments with a “yes” or “no” vote on people who appear before them on the proverbial bended knee with hat in hand begging for mercy.

Parole decisions are based primarily on a three-prong criteria: 1) the politics of the case (or the sensational nature of the offense for which the inmate stands convicted); 2) the nature of the offense as viewed from the prosecutor’s “guilty as charged” perspective, particularly when the victim is white and the inmate a person of color and when the victim is a person of social status and the inmate is from the ranks of the socially disenfranchised; and 3) the social status, white race, and political connections of any victim opposition in the case.

Penal rehabilitation, remarkable inmate accomplishments, remorse, apologies, inmate community support, and favorable psychological inmate profiles do not play any role, much less a meaningful one, in the parole decision-making process. Frequently, the slightest reference and certainly any full-throttle advocacy of these parole supporting factors often trigger critical responses, even hostile rebukes from board members.

Here is the way “justice” works in the parole system.

In 1965, I unintentionally killed a store clerk with errant .22 caliber bullet fired over my shoulder as the clerk chased me across the store’s parking lot. I was 20 years old at the time.

In 1975, an individual I will identify as “Tex” walked into a barroom in Haughton, Louisiana angered about being jilted by a girlfriend. The girlfriend was sitting with a new male companion and two friends. She mocked Tex’s attempts to reconcile. He went out to his vehicle, retrieved a pump shotgun, walked back into the barroom, and opened fire, taking time to reload and fire some more. He left two people dead and two critically wounded.

Both of us were given life without parole sentences.

In 1992, after serving 27 years, my life sentence was commuted to 90 years.

In 1995, after serving 20 years, Tex’s two life sentences were commuted to 75 years.

In 2006, I was granted parole at my seventh hearing after serving more than 40 years.

In 1998, Tex was granted parole at his first parole hearing after serving 23 years.

There is one basic reason for the difference in treatment of these two cases by the Louisiana parole board—corrupt insider political influence.

My victim, a former high school football hero, came from a politically connected family with deep ties to the local football community city with the resources to apply intense political pressure, to sway the parole decision-making process, while Tex’s four victims were just every day, ordinary people who did not have political connections and it is more likely than not that the board members who voted for Tex’s early release did not even know his victims’ names.

There are more than 150,000 people serving life sentences in the nation’s penal system—roughly 16 percent of the nation’s total prison population. Slightly more than 97,000 of these inmates have some form of parole eligibility. The rest do not.

A 2021 report by The Sentencing Project found that roughly 20 percent of the Black inmates imprisoned in this country are serving life sentences with about two-thirds of them having white victims in their crimes. Study after study shows that Black inmates serving sentences for crimes involving white victims will serve markedly more time compared to white inmates serving sentences with white victims. That is the systemic racism rooted in the core of American criminal justice.

That’s why victim political influence, offender/victim race, and victim social status are the guiding factors in parole decision-making. All three factors are rife with corruption and racism. These parole decision-making factors inevitably transforms parole into a bullshit institution—not one designed to give inmates a second chance but one designed to serve and protect the political interest of those holding the power.

The Sentencing Project’s latest report (May 2025), “Justice Delayed: The Growing Wait For Parole After a Life Sentence,” makes the following recommendations for parole decisions for inmates, like the Menendez brothers, serving parole eligible life sentences:

· Allow initial parole hearings within 10 years of imprisonment

· Establish a presumption of release

· Allow a rehearing to occur annually

· Ensure procedural safeguards to promote fair consideration

· Expand release opportunities beyond parole, such as judicial sentence reviews established through second look and domestic violence survivor laws

· Prioritize respect for human dignity throughout all steps of the process

Unfortunately, there is not a single parole system in any state in the U.S. with the political will and moral courage to implement and maintain these recommendations given the extraordinary unfairness and corrupt history of this nation’s parole system.

Against this historical backdrop, the Menendez brothers will get at least one more three-year set off—more likely two, perhaps three—before they are granted parole … unless there is a Republican governor in office. That party’s politicized law-and-order agenda as evidenced by the current Los Angeles district attorney will ensure an exceptionally long confinement.