5 » ane rd ae i 4Co i = wf of Pardons decisions not easy Students face inmates by Craig V. Nelson WSC News Bureau Dr. uries may decide guilt or innocence, judges may set sent- one of the of the first full-time Utah Board of Pardons, said that contrary to what most people think the judge sets during the trial process. ‘Judges work from a set of criteria, then the inmate comes to the board of we would decide how much of that time they are going to serve,” he said. Dr. Gillespie served as one of three members of the board for six months researching case histories and meeting with 18 to 20 inmates every Wednes- day and Friday in a hearing room at the prison. He said, “It’s not well known, but in the state of Utah the board of pardons can commute a sentence from death to life and has that power. The governor can only grant a stay until the next meeting of the board of pardons.” He said that the board has a support staff that pulls together all the information regarding each prisoner's case and presents it, along with a recommendation of action, to the board for their review. Board members then study each case, prepare questions, review the staff recommendation along with _ {the recommendation of the prison _ .|guards before holding a hearing for the prisoner. Dr. Gillespie said, “The person would appear before the board and we would ask them questions — what they had been doing while in prison, what the attitude was.” | From there they either set a parole date or scheduled the inmate to return for a rehearing. Dr. Gillespie said, “We don’t figure that a man who has a life sentence and is only in prison for one year has served enough time to be able to give him a parole date so the board tends to give him a long rehearing date. Just recently they gave someone a 30-year rehearing date.” He said that as a result of being on the board he received several death threats and said he had to change his phone number to an unlisted one and work out procedures with his wife in case angry friends and family of in- mates should try to vent their feelings on his family. He said, “We had to take them Students, inmates Dr. L. Kay Gillespie spent six months of his sabbatical leave last year on the Utah Board of Pardons. He has brought his experience in that position to his classes through a unique exercise in which the students make decisions on actual cases and then present the their desicions to the actual inmate involved. & Board of Pardons Dr. Gillespie noted that family members could speak or submit letters to the board in behalf of the inmates and that victims and the judges or lawyers involved with the case were also welcome to attend or submit letters. But he said that seldom did the victims come and even less often did judges or lawyers get involved. He explained that the board uses a set of predetermined guidelines to assess the “risk factor” of each inmate. If the risk was high a rehearing was set, or if a parole date was given it still required a significant time in prison _before the release date, if low, then a How do students react to ‘those on whom they are called to pass judgement? During two classes, the students were able to question a parolee and an inmate as though they were a real parole board. The parolee, Craig John Randall (not his real name), had served several years in an Illinois state prison for armed robbery. After his release there he returned to Utah where he was convicted of forgery and sent to the Utah State Prison at Point of the Mountain. While serving this sentence he was charged with the rape and murder of a 19 year old Utah woman. He was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. After serving three shorter parole date was given. guy who did it as a victim and there’s no easy way out. All you can say is, ‘you'll just have to do some time. Society demands that.” He continued, “As a person you want to do one thing, but as a representative of society you have to do another. It’s difficult to balance.” The WSC criminologist said that though he had years of working with inmates, this particular experience produced effects that were “physically destroying” and prompted him to resign from the board half way thruogh his one-year appointment and take a job as director of training with the Division of Corrections. hit He said, “It wasn’t that I was afraid and killed two children with a car. The parents of the man came in and said, ‘If we could give our lives for those of the death threats. I guess it was just the gut-wrenching experience of having to play god with somebody eises life. I've been a criminologist for a long Dr. Gillespie said, “One fellow (death threats) seriously whether they children we would gladly do it.’ So here you have the parents as victims, you have kids as victims, you have the were serious or not.” parents of the kids as victims and the . currently decision — face-to-face. Dr. Gillespie, who first used this approach for a night class he taught while serving on the board, said, “It was a little scarier before because a death row inmate who was on death row for four years, had his sentence commuted to life and was on parole, would come ir. and join the class as a student. Some of the students said, ‘This sucker really ought to be killed’ and it really made some hearts stop when | would say, ‘Now I'm going to have you tell him to his face’ and he would get up and walk to the front.” The idea of the class is not just to shock the, he said, but to remind them, as he was reminded, that inmates are people. He said, “We tend to treat then not as people, but as numbers and it’s easy once we make that kind of distance. But I think we lose a lot. We do an injustice to society and to ourselves, and it’s hard to sleep nights.” tion to disregard” the sentence that the and and class so the students can tell him their board has total control over how long an inmate is in prison and has “the op- pardons college ST was the his ex- Feat who back. to has brought the board of pardons 5 State original members from teaches a course where he recreates his experience in the classroom. 3 Students in the class receive case histories and other curren‘ information about an inmate, divide into groups of threes and come to a decision on of parole, rehearing or capital punishment. Then, to bring the reality of the} experience home, Dr. Gillespie has the inmate being discussed come into the ences, but it is the state board of pardons that decides how long an inmate will be in prison. Dr. L. Kay Gillespie, a sociologist at |Weber Gillespie periences Sereamiges tina —Board | Ra mment 7 \ ARE e time and I didn’t expect to run into that. It really brought me face to face with myself.” by T.J. Bond, Editor years on death row, his sentence was commuted to life at hard labor. After serving a total of 12 years at Point of the Mountain, Randall was granted parole. He has served two-and-a-half years. In Utah, three years is the maximum amount of time the } i = Hi5 ; ae i =