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Friend,
The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles meets just 20 miles from the prison where Leola Harris, a 71-year-old woman in end-stage renal failure, has been incarcerated for 19 years. But for Harris, those 20 miles might as well be the moon, as far away as her chances of being released from prison before she dies.
Harris was a first-time offender when she was convicted of murdering a friend in her home. She has been a model of good behavior inside the prison for the almost two decades she has served of a 35-year sentence.
Harris uses a wheelchair for mobility and undergoes dialysis three times a week. She has diabetes. She is unable to go to the bathroom by herself and has spent extended periods in the infirmary of Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. A nursing home has agreed to take her to live out her final days. But in January, the parole board took just six minutes to deny her parole.
Harris never traveled the 20 miles to the boardroom, where just two members of the three-member board made the decision because the other member was absent. In Alabama, unlike in every other state where parole hearings are held, incarcerated people aren’t permitted to attend their parole hearings, in person or virtually.
While the Alabama Department of Corrections certified that Harris was eligible for medical parole, and both a registered nurse and case manager testified she should be released to the nursing home, the parole board took none of that, nor Harris’ nearly impeccable prison record, into consideration. Her next parole hearing is in 2028. Her attorneys say she will not live to see it.
Under Alabama law, parole board denials are not subject to appeal.
Harris’ experience is the norm these days in Alabama. The rate of incarcerated people being granted parole in the state plunged to a new low in the last fiscal year, when 90% of eligible people’s parole claims were rejected, according to the board’s reports. The Southern Poverty Law Center and a growing number of advocates for incarcerated people say the decline is no coincidence. The board, advocates say, is not following its own guidelines and has made denial of parole the default decision.
“Pure injustice,” former Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb calls the Harris denial, and the streak of denials of which it is part. Two years ago Cobb, appalled at the plummeting release rates and the way parole hearings are conducted – attorneys are given four to six minutes to make their case and there is no possibility of appeal – formed Redemption Earned, a nonprofit law firm that represents elderly and ill incarcerated adults it deems worthy of transition to nursing homes. Cobb and Redemption Earned staff are representing Harris at no cost.
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Sincerely,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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