Posted on 06/15/2004 3:38:05 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO (AP) - Adam Riojas waited 13 years for freedom before Arnold Schwarzenegger turned the key.
Convicted in 1991 of murder, the former real estate agent maintained his innocence and turned down offers of a plea bargain. Then in 2002, relatives told the state parole board that they had heard Riojas' estranged father, a drug smuggler, confess to the killing shortly before his own death. The board, with no objection from the prosecutors who put Riojas behind bars, decided he deserved parole.
Their recommendation was sent to Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, who, having publicly vowed to keep convicted murderers in prison for life, rejected it.
But a year later, after an unexpected change in state leadership, Riojas is free - one of the 34 convicted murderers and kidnappers paroled by the Republican Schwarzenegger in his first seven months as governor.
During Davis' entire 4 1/2 years in office, just eight lifers were granted parole.
Riojas and his lawyer, Justin Brooks of the California Innocence Project, said fears of a Willie Horton-type imbroglio - the case of a murderer who committed rape while on furlough and helped doom Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' 1988 bid for the White House - led Davis to reject parole for convicted murders with little regard to the merits of their cases.
Schwarzenegger, in contrast, "is a big man and he's strong," Riojas said. "He doesn't have to portray a real tough-guy image because people already see him as tough."
Brooks said the details of Riojas' case were identical in each of his two parole bids, "and it was just a completely different result. Politically, I think Davis was unwilling to give the appearance that he was soft on crime."
Schwarzenegger's legal secretary, Peter Siggins, credited the change to a difference in philosophy: "He is a governor who believes people can reform and be reformed."
Until the final year before Davis was ousted in a tumultuous recall election, only three murderers were given parole, all women who killed men they claimed had abused them for years. One convicted murderer, Robert Rosenkrantz, sued Davis, claiming the governor violated his rights by adopting a blanket no-parole policy. A judge agreed in 2001, but was reversed on appeal.
Davis' former spokesman, Steve Maviglio, said every parole recommendation sent to the governor was given individual consideration, and "politics didn't play into his review." Maviglio said Davis simply "tended to come down on the side of the victims and the prosecutors more often than someone who's been in prison."
In fact, much more often: Davis rejected release for 286 lifers who had been recommended for parole by the state Board of Prison Terms. Of the 95 recommendations sent to Schwarzenegger as of June 2, he has reversed 58 and sent three back for further review.
Donald Specter of the Prison Law Office, a nonprofit organization that protects the rights of prisoners, said Schwarzenegger is giving more hope to inmates but still is not going far enough. "He's still reversing more than 50 percent of cases that the board is granting parole on," Specter said.
Very few of the lifers who seek parole each year - about 150 out of more than 4,000 - win recommendations from the nine-member board, which includes several former law enforcement professionals. In addition to statements from prosecutors and victims or their families, the board considers an inmate's criminal history, behavior in prison, psychological profile and likelihood of committing another crime.
"These are always hard decisions," said Schwarzenegger aide Siggins. "I sometimes walk out of this building at night hoping that we've done the right thing either way, either to let someone out or not let someone out."
Harriet Salarno, whose 18-year-old daughter was murdered by an estranged boyfriend in 1979, is worried by Schwarzenegger's record. Salarno, president of Crime Victims United of California, said the state owes more to the victims and the public than to violent criminals, "very few" of whom can be reformed.
"We supported Gov. Davis because he was concerned with public safety and that was a high priority," she said. As for the convicted killers released by Schwarzenegger, "let's just pray to God that they don't become repeat offenders."
Riojas, who completed 11 vocational programs behind bars, said the new administration is encouraging inmates to turn their lives around. Under Davis, he said, there was no reason for hope.
"I've seen a lot of inmates giving up," Riojas said. "They would go ahead and fight and start using drugs or alcohol ... because they said, 'Hey, I'm never getting out, because no matter what I do these guys are not letting me out."'
"You would not believe the tension that the Davis years created," he said. "If our state doesn't do this, rehabilitate our people who are incarcerated, I believe that the prisons are ready to blow up."
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I am not sure what conclusions we should draw from this. Davis was so political that he did not release a guy who deserved to be released or Schwarzennager is soft of crime. The prisoners, don't all have the right to be released if they behave in prison. In fact the opponents of capital punishment always bring up life in prison with no chance of parole. Guys like Schwarzennager prove that there is no such thing.
Prisons overcrowded?
Deport the illegals...
Problem solved!
Arnold can finally be referred to as a pro-"lifer".
As porous as the borders are, well, that solves the problem of overcrowding, but one could do much the same by just letting them out.
(OTOH, I did have an interesting experience last winter on a flight to Europe next to a Russian illegal who'd just been deported "home" from SoCal -- no money, no coat, one brother 600 miles from destination with no knowledge he was coming, and to a county (Ukraine) that didn't exist when he arrived here. Wonder if he'll be back...?)
Was one of them named Willie Horton? I guess we'll find out.
Well don't get me started on the porousness of the borders. LOL
Because as far as I am concerned, until the Bush Administration enforces the immigration laws on the books and secures the ports and borders, there is no "war on drugs", there is no "war on terrorism" and there definitely is no "homeland security!"
I've been told (by a lawyer friend) that the pardon was intended to be a final line of defense against errors in the criminal justice system. (And as most any engineer will tell you, a system which runs as "open-loop" as that one does is quite likely to slam into the rails.) It is not supposed to be used for "time off for good behavior."
The pardon has been abused (think Klintoon), but its successes are far less hailed -- and sometimes controversial enough that, at least in this state, the governor appoints a board to review all applications and make recommendations to him. (We have a couple of cases out of the Wenatchee child abuse witchhunt that could use a pardon, but read on...)
Interestingly, my Democrat lawyer friend does not like our Democrat governor on this issue because the governor has in his two terms issued exactly one pardon, and that one amazingly trite and highly conditional. He says Republicans tend to be better on pardon reviews.
Perhaps because Republicans tend to pay more attention to real issues and less the media spotlight? I don't know...
You are so right!
What? Why that's downright reasonable and LEGAL! What are you thinking? That would never find acceptance among the majority of our political elite. Think of something illegal, and preferably distasteful to most citizens and it may get broad support among the politicians.
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