Bill would mandate greater transparency in parole board decisions

A bill in the General Assembly has drawn praise for its potential to make the inner workings of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles more transparent, but there are questions about just how far that transparency would go.

To understand what House Bill 71 might actually do, you have to understand what inspired it.

Kimberly Boim, the editor and publisher of the Dawson Advertiser newspaper, said it all started in Dawson County with the slaying of Keith Evans in 1991. She covered the Evans killing by Tommy Lee Waldrip and three other men.

Waldrip was to be executed last July. The day before his scheduled execution, though, the parole board granted Waldrip a commutation of his death sentence. It was only the ninth such commutation in the state.

Many Dawson County residents were taken aback by the decision, which came during a clemency hearing in Atlanta.

“To have a board, the Board of Pardons and Paroles, overturn that in less than two hours floored everybody in our community,” Boim recalled.

Evans’ family wasn’t even back home from the hearing when they got the news. Boim said the Evans family, and many Dawson County residents, had one question: How did this happen?

Boim and the Dawson Advertiser asked the board to explain. After about a month of back and forth communications, the board gave the paper a two-sentence reply that amounted to “no.” In a nonbinding resolution, the Dawson County commissioners asked for the same explanation. They got the same two-sentence reply.

Enter Kevin Tanner.

In 1991, Tanner was employed by the Dawson County Sheriff’s Office, where he helped investigate the Evans slaying. Today he represents the county in the Georgia House of Representatives.

“And I felt and still feel today that victims and their families deserve a better answer,” Tanner said.

So Tanner and five other representatives sponsored House Bill 71 to try to get those answers.

The bill would increase transparency, Tanner said, by forcing the board to make public the reasoning behind its decisions when it commutes death sentences. The bill would also make public decisions to grant pardons. Tanner says he doesn’t want any more Waldrip-style surprises from the parole board.

Tanner says that the board would also have to publish why it denies commutations and pardons if HB71 becomes law.

AMBIGUITY IN BILL?

Donald E. Wilkes Jr., a professor emeritus of law at the University of Georgia, disagrees on that second feature of the bill.

“I don’t see how this proposed statute is going to make much difference in terms of that,” he said.

For Wilkes, the bill’s language just doesn’t provide for total transparency.

“What this statute does is to make a change only in cases where the board grants commutation,” he said “And it says in those cases there must be transparency (and the board) must give reasons and it must explain its vote.”

Section 3 of the bill spells out clearly what information should be made public when the board commutes a death sentence. Wilkes doesn’t see any language relating to the denial of a death sentence commutation.

He warned that as written, the bill would more likely have a chilling effect on the commutation of death sentences. If given the choice between making a decision that comes bundled with a lot of extra work and the potential for criticism and scrutiny or a decision in which secrets are kept, Wilkes says the latter is more likely.

Tanner disagrees with Wilkes’ reading of the bill.

“That’s not the intent,” he said. “The intent of the legislation is that once a final decision is rendered, no matter what that decision is, the reason for that decision is made public.”

Linda Jellum is a professor at Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law. She said the problem with the bill is one of ambiguity.

Section 3 of the bill can be split in half, she said. The first half reads in a way that demands explanation from the parole board when it grants clemency, saying that “A grant of clemency, pardon, parole, or other relief from sentence shall be ... rendered only by a written decision.”

The second half of the section is where it gets hazy for Jellum.

As to commutation it reads, “A written decision relating to a commutation of a death sentence shall ...” and it goes on to list what the board would include in its written report.

Two words in that section -- “relating to” -- are what Jellum says total transparency hinges on.

“There’s an argument that could be made that the parole board should (explain both findings), but I think it’s the weaker argument,” she said.

Board spokesman Steve Hayes says the parole board has been helping the bill along.

“Since the beginning of the process, the board has worked with the sponsor, Representative Tanner, and has contributed to the current version of the bill,” he said in an email.

Hayes says the bill in its present form is something the board can live with.

Jellum says she can see the argument for both interpretations of the bill, Wilkes’ and Tanner’s, but it’s frustrating.

“I don’t think it’s clear. I can’t get to clear,” she said.

Tanner is quick to say that the bill, until it becomes law, is still a work in progress.

This story was originally published March 23, 2015 at 5:35 PM with the headline "Bill would mandate greater transparency in parole board decisions ."