Criminal
Aug. 10, 2002
Officials Ask Court To Free Two Inmates
LOS ANGELES - Religious and prison authorities, including the former director of the California state prison system, asked the California Supreme Court on Thursday to free two inmates they claim are the victims of an unconstitutional "no parole policy" from Gov. Gray Davis.
In a friend of the court brief, the officials accused Davis of reversing parole decisions for Robert Rosenkrantz and Mark Smith because of political considerations.
"When a court of law sentences an offender to life in prison with the possibility of earning parole, no Governor should arbitrarily take away that hope for purely political reasons," one of the parties to the brief, former California Youth Authority director Allen Breed, said in a written statement.
Joining Breed were Raymond Procunier, former head of both the California and Texas Departments of Corrections; the California Council of Churches; the Board of Rabbis of Northern California; the directors of the Office of Detention Ministry of the Twelve Dioceses of the State of California; Catholic chaplains from the archdioceses of the state of California who serve state prisoners; the Jesuits; and the Coalition for Battered Women in Prison.
The cases of Rosenkrantz and Smith have been litigated up and down the court system since Davis took office in 1999. Lawyers for the two inmates have sought to show that Davis has an arbitrary policy of refusing to let murderers out of prison even when correctional authorities declare them rehabilitated. Of more than 80 convicted murderers and kidnappers the Board of Prison Terms has found suitable for parole, Davis has allowed only two murderers out, both of them women who presented a battered spouse syndrome defense.
A spokesman for Davis said every parole case gets independent scrutiny.
"There are no set policies for deciding parole," Byron Tucker said.
Rosenkrantz is serving a sentence of 17 years to life in prison for the 1985 machine-gunning of a high school friend who revealed Rosenkrantz's homosexuality to Rosenkrantz's father.
Staff Writer
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