This was a great series to start out the month with. Since the pardon of P.G. Holmes, the Georgia Department of Corrections has been very open about their leniency policies.
This is an interesting policy because it’s almost like a form of self-policing. It’s like when a person who has been found guilty of some serious drug crime or murder gets a second chance at rehabilitation.
In Georgia the parole board has been given more leniency in the past. In 1993, the parole board found a man with a similar case who was a “model prisoner.” He had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death, but the parole board found that his crime was not as severe as those in the parole board’s previous cases. In fact he was a good prison guard who had a good work ethic. Because of this, the parole board gave him a second chance at life.
A number of states have parole boards that are more lenient that the Georgia board. Georgia’s board made this mistake because it was trying to make amends for the fact that it had let a man get killed by a guard. They were afraid that the guy would be back on the street again. The Georgia parole board’s mistake is that they didn’t realize that a prisoner sentenced to death for murder would be eligible for parole. Instead, they just let him go.
A pardon is a reprieve from the death penalty. It lets a prisoner go back to their old life with no one to protect them. Georgia pardons and parole board are not trying to make amends for the fact that they let someone get killed by a guard. Instead they just wanted to give the guy a second chance at life.
Georgia pardons and parole board have been around for a long time. The last time they were abolished in 2002, they were the ones sending murderers to Alabama and Mississippi, where their sentence was served. With the abolishment of the parole board, you just had to be a good citizen who gave a little to the state, and the state just let you go.
A lot of people don’t like the parole board because of its tendency to send people to prison that they shouldn’t be sent to prison for the rest of their lives. But for me personally, I’m glad they’re gone. The parole board was used to sending murderers to prison for life. In the past, there were cases where people escaped death after being sent to prison for life.
Before I started working with the parole board, I was sent there for parole violations every 3.5 years for a total of 9 years. I thought about it for a minute and realized that this was a pretty dumb thing to do to the people. I was even told by the president that I would be put back in prison. I feel bad for the people that have to go through that, but it was still a pretty dumb thing to do to people.
In the past, some people escaped the death after being sent to prison for life. There was a man that was put in prison for life for murdering his wife and 4 kids. When he escaped, he went to the other side of the prison, where he shot and killed a cop and then escaped the prison on his own. Although he was put back in prison for life, he was put in the general population, and he got out just a few days later.
