The Mobile Register
Brendan Kirby
November 6, 2005
 

Autrey Lee Bowden snuffed out Vincent Terrell "Terry" Neely's life with a shotgun blast during a business dispute in 1987.

Years afterward, Neely's widow, Jane Neely Buell, was in no mood to forget. She vigorously opposed Bowden's bids for parole each time that they came up, and feared that he might one day harm her or her family.

By this summer, though, Bowden had grown old and frail. The state parole board, under a new program, gave him a hearing in September ahead of the normal schedule.

Even Buell was uncertain whether Bowden, who had turned 83, should still be locked up.

"I had no speech prepared, but I got up there and said I didn't feel like this man was a threat anymore but that at one time he was," said Buell, who has remarried and lives in Mobile.

Bowden was not present for the hearing, no one spoke directly on his behalf, and he didn't walk free afterward. The parole board members denied his release following a brief consultation.

"It took about 30 seconds," Buell said. "Maybe 30 seconds is an exaggeration."

Bowden was one of 15 state prisoners considered for early parole as part of the state's new program, which covers inmates whose advanced age or declining health may have diminished their danger to the public.

Bowden's experience was typical of those prisoners, however: In two months of hearings, the parole board has granted release to only one, while refusing 11. Two inmates have hearings scheduled for this month, while one ended his sentence before his hearing could be set.

Those outcomes offer an early indication that so-called geriatric paroles are unlikely to provide relief to a prison system that is grappling with an increasingly older and sicker population.

The chronically overcrowded system had 23,867 inmates in major prison institutions, work-release centers and boot camps in September. Those facilities were designed to hold 12,444 prisoners.

"It will not relieve overcrowding," said William Segrest, director of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Rising costs:

A number of states have taken steps to release inmates whose age or health makes them unlikely to offend again. In general, the older the prisoner, the less likely he is to commit new crimes if released.

According to the most recent survey by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, 41 percent of prisoners 45 and older who were released in 1994 had returned to prison within three years. For all prisoners, the figure was 52 percent.

But experts say parole boards often face political pressure to deny release to inmates convicted of severe and violent crimes.

"Usually, it's so excruciatingly slow, even when, theoretical ly, there's something that can be done," said Jenni Gainsborough, an analyst with Washington-based Penal Reform International. "More often than not, the person dies first."

Jackie Walker, the HIV/AIDS hepatitis information coordinator for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Prison Project, said inmates should be able to spend their final weeks and months at home.

"It's clearly more dignified and more humane than dying in any prison system," she said.

Also, Gainsborough said, states have a strong financial incentive to parole extremely ill and old inmates. "Even a nursing home is likely to be cheaper than a prison," she said.

Alabama has comparatively few older inmates. Records from the Department of Corrections show that 709 prisoners -- or 2.6 percent of the total -- were 60 or older in September. Another 2,305, or 8.3 percent, were ages 51 to 60.

According to department statistics, 65 state prisoners died last year. That included two suicides, two from AIDS, 55 from other natural causes and six in which the cause of death could not be determined.

Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the prison system, said the Department of Corrections spends an average of $2,693 per inmate each year for health care. He said he does not know what that figure is for the inmates who got early parole hearings.

"Common sense would tell you these inmates would be costlier to incarcerate," he said.

Segrest agreed that aged and ill inmates could have a disproportionate impact on the prison system's health care budget. "Some of these folks probably cost the state $200,000 to $300,000 a year," he said.

Despite the potential savings, Corbett said the parole initiative is not something that the department pushed for.

"Granted, bed space is at a premium in the Department of Corrections," he said. "But in the overall scope of things ... it's really a negligible amount."

Culling the list:

Alabama parole officials said they always have moved up hearing dates for extremely ill prisoners whose families bring their medical conditions to the attention of authorities.

But this summer marked the first time they attempted to identify such inmates in a systematic way, they said.

Their effort stemmed from a bill in the Legislature this year that would have set up a system for geriatric paroles. Although the bill died, parole officials said they believed that they could achieve the same goals with administrative changes.

Corbett said his department sent the parole board a list of all inmates 65 and older. Also included were inmates who were terminally ill or otherwise incapacitated.

That totaled about 275 people, he said.

Cynthia Dillard, the parole board's assistant executive director, said all sex offenders automatically were eliminated from consideration. Also eliminated were prisoners who were serving life-without-parole sentences, were otherwise legally ineligible or were felt by board staff members to be inappropriate candidates.

Six of those trimmed from the list, for example, had been denied early release within the previous eight months. One other had killed a police officer. One was judged "psychotic." One was 65 years old, but was 63 when he committed his crime. One was 81, but was 79 when he committed his offense.

Segrest then culled the list further, leaving 15 prisoners.

"I read the files myself," he said.

Segrest said he was not confident that even those who made the final cut would win parole. Of the 15 who were given hearings, 10 had committed murder or manslaughter.

In Bowden's case, he was three to seven feet from Neely, who was also his nephew, when he shot him in the head. According to news accounts, the shooting occurred months after Bowden and Neely's mother, Eva Neely, sued each other in a dispute over the auto parts business they owned together.

Two other inmates from Mobile County have also been considered for parole -- and denied -- through the new program.

Frank M. Otis, 55, of Mobile is serving a 25-year sentence for burglary. His criminal record includes murder, involving a 1975 slaying of a retired seaman on Raven Drive during a home invasion. At the time, he was on parole for another burglary conviction.

Willie Lee Sashner, 71, of Prichard was convicted in 1986 of fatally stabbing his common-law wife in the back with a butcher knife. Previously, he had served time for manslaughter in the death of his brother.

"In most of the cases, the crimes are just absolutely atrocious," Segrest said.

Human drama:

When parole is the issue, emotion runs deep among families of victims and prisoners alike.

Miriam Shehane, who founded the Alabama group Victims of Crime and Leniency, said such cases should be reviewed individually.

"Crime victims feel that they should serve their time. That's what they were sentenced to, and that's what they should serve regardless," she said.

Shehane said she has been encouraged by the parole board's record so far.

"I have to give the parole board credit. They are looking at it very closely," she said. "They are listening to the victims. They are listening to both sides, and making what I think are fair decisions."

Shehane said frequent trips to Montgomery to fight parole can traumatize victims. In one case, she said, the parole board denied early release and said it would not reconsider parole for at least three years. But the inmate was in poor health, and the board set another hearing a year and a half later.

"Frankly, he was not any sicker than he was the first time," she said. "But they had to come back and have another hearing."

Advocates for inmates and their families have their own anecdotes, however. Rosemary Collins, director of the Alabama chapter of Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants, said she knew of a prisoner who was in rapidly declining health. But instead of parole to his family, the inmate got a transfer to the Hamilton Aged and Infirm Center, a state prison facility in northwest Alabama where he died.

"He was unable to walk or get around. He was in his bed," she said. "It's so sad for families. These are people. ... They really need to study this closer."

When considering parole for any prisoner, Dillard said, board members must determine that he no longer poses a risk to the community. For some, that hurdle may be impossible to clear no matter their age or health.

"A lot of people think life doesn't mean life unless it's life without parole," she said. "But there are many people in prison with life sentences who will never be paroled."

The one inmate who has won release under the new program is Donald J. Nissen, a 74-year-old man who was serving a life sentence from Montgomery County beginning in 1989 for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, robbery, extortion and burglary. Nissen entered a halfway house after he got out of prison.

As for Buell, the Mobile woman whose husband was murdered 18 years ago, she said she is at peace whether Bowden dies in prison or not.

"Spiritually, I'm OK. I can't say I completely forgive him, but I'm not afraid of him anymore," she said.

Back to News