Parole Board Meets Amid Controversy, Victims Call For More Transparency

The Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board met for the first time since concerns were raised about potential criminal violations of the open meetings act by the board.  Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater says he is still investigating, but is encouraged by board members who say they are committed to making the parole process more transparent.  "I know they want to make sure this is a more transparent process," Prater said.

Prater says the board did remove an agenda item that could be criminally vague and removed an inmate from consideration for early release as part of a review on the board's processes and procedures.  However Prater says he was surprised to learn board members say they were caught off-guard when he sent a letter to them announce his findings of potential violations of the open meetings act.  "I think what concerned me the most was that even though the governor's office and the director of pardon and parole knew about this on July the 19th, they were not notified until my letter came out that's astounding to me and unfair to them," Prater told a crowd of reporters.

The governor's office says Prater did call in July, but they were unaware of any allegations of open meeting violations.  In a statement to Fox 25, Pardon and Parole director Terry Jenks says board members were notified after Prater raised his initial concerns.  However at the meeting today, board members told Prater they were not told by anyone.  Board member Currie Ballard told reporters he couldn't comment on the case, but did characterize the incident as a miscommunication.  "That's what we're looking into internally to make sure a mishap like that doesn't ever occur," Ballard said.

The fight for more transparency comes as a relief to the families of crime victims.  "I just feel like families need to have more advanced notice on what is going on," Delicia Hurst-Crouse told Fox 25.  Hurst-Crouse is the sister of Jerry Don Hurst.  He was poisoned during his senior year of high school by a friend Danny Turner.  Turner stole potassium cyanide from the school science department and gave it to Hurst.  That was 21 years ago, but since the crime happened before the 85% sentencing law he's been eligible for parole for the past decade.  "We've never had a chance to heal because we've had to go through this parole hearing every two or three years and it rehashes all the pain and you have to write letters about how it affected you and it's just a cycle," Hurst-Crouse said.

The Hurst family says this is the first time they've had to testify to keep Turner in jail.  They've been keeping up-to-date on the controversy surrounding the board.  They say the lack of transparency has caused their family pain in the past.  The board released a second person convicted of Hurst's murder, Quincy Scott, in 2010.  "It's really devastating, actually when Mr. Scott got out in March, we didn't have any notification until after he was already out," Hurst-Crouse said following her emotional testimony to board members. 

The Hurst case is not affected by the board's current moratorium on considering early release for those convicted of violent crimes.  Prater says the board should change current procedures so it makes it easier for the public and victims to know what is happening in the parole process.  He says while the board does have the power to commute sentences for those ineligible for parole the procedure it is following is inappropriate.  ""I think what they are doing is doing something indirectly they can't do directly and when they place someone on a parole docket, they're not placing them on the commutation docket so there again the public doesn't have appropriate notice to what's going on behind the scenes."  Prater says a ruling by the attorney general will help clarify the board's ability to consider commutations.  "If they're going through the same process and calling it a commutation then how is a commutation different than a parole?" Prater said "Commutations ought to be relatively rare."Parole Board Meets Amid Controversy, Victims Call For More Transparency

Posted: Tuesday, August 14 2012, 09:25 PM CDT