"There is plenty of work for this board to do," said Velinda Weatherly, a member of the permanent state Board of Pardons and Paroles.
 
The other, special board was established in 2003 to help clear non-violent offenders out of the crowded, expensive state prison system.

Citing two-week old numbers, the most recent she could get, Weatherly said there were 550 to 600 non-violent prisoners and 2,000 violent inmates who were past due for parole hearings.

"There is a backlog of cases that can be put on the docket," said Weatherly. "The numbers speak for themselves."

To last through 2006:

The four-member special parole board, appointed by Gov. Bob Riley, was to be in place three years, ending in September 2006.

When the board got started in December 2003, state prisons held 27,344. That number dropped to just over 26,000, but has been steadily rising again as new people are sentenced. Currently, there are 27,387 people in space for about 13,000.

Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell has asked the Legislature for $580 million - about twice this year's budget - including $151 million for two new prisons he says he needs.

Both Riley and Attorney General Troy King support the bill disbanding the second board.

"Its work appears to be done at this time." said Riley spokesman Jeff Emerson.

Members of the special board have clashed with King at some of the hearings. Also, they have acted somewhat independently, at times paroling people over the protests of the Attorney General's Office and district attorneys.

At a hearing last week on the bill to eliminate the second board, a member of King's staff accused the panel of acting recklessly.

Last year, when the second board allowed a prisoner's family and attorney to give the reasons they said drove her to kill her husband, King spoke out.

"I'm disappointed and I'm disgusted by what I heard here today. ... It's trafficking in rumors," King said at the time. "Y'all have allowed the character assassination of the dead to occur today and it's shameful."

Usually, if negative information comes out about anyone during a parole hearing, it's about the prisoner.

Attorney General's spokesman Chris Bence said Friday that King was supportive of the special board at the beginning. King was Riley's legal adviser when the governor created the board.

The panel was "to consider as many nonviolent cases as possible for parole, and that has been done," Bence said.

Initially, the Governor's Office said it hoped the special board would release about 5,000 inmates, but that has not happened.

"Were it not for the efforts that have been made, the (prison) population would have been a whole heck of a lot more than it is now," Bence said.

Cynthia Dillard, spokeswoman for the Board of Pardons and Paroles, said the board agreed that the second panel's work is done. "Neither board is doing a complete workload," she told the Associated Press after Tuesday's hearing. "We used to hear as many cases in a day that as these two boards are hearing in a week - the numbers are just not there."

Parole Board Executive Director Bill Serest confirmed Friday that there were 550 to 600 backlogged nonviolent cases. But he said they could be cleared off the docket in a month or two.

Notification slow:

Delays on the 2,000 violent cases are out of the board's hands because other employees are responsible for locating the victims in these cases and notifying them that the prisoners are up for parole, a process that can be time-consuming, especially on old cases.

In recent months, a rift had occurred between members of the permanent "old" board, and members of the special panel, with the exception of Weatherly, who's the newest member of the permanent board.

With permanent board member Nancy Conn McCreary retiring in April, Weatherly said it's even more important to keep the special board hearing cases.

Dr. James Austin, a criminologist who has analyzed Alabama's prison population, estimates that 3,000 to 5,000 low-risk prisoners could still safely be paroled. Austin said numbers that he presented to the governor's office, the attorney general and some lawmakers show that 4,600 prisoners are low-risk. That means they are eligible for parole and unlikely to commit a crime that would return them to the prison system.

Austin, who has worked for other states and for the Department of Justice, is seeking a state contract to help the prison system reduce its inmate population through paroles and other means.

The bill to eliminate the special board passed a House committee last week and is pending before the House.

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