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: What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

Presumed guilty: the parole files are closed

By Ron Sylvester

After learning Ronald Rhodes had been turned down for parole seven times, we wanted to find out why.

So we asked the Kansas Parole Board (PDF) if we could look at his files.

They said no (PDF). The board said said the law didn’t prohibit making Rhodes’ parole records public, but it didn’t require opening the files, either. The board decided it best to keep the files closed.

The last time the board denied parole to Rhodes, it decided he needed to quit smoking (PDF).

“The thing is, he’d already quit smoking,” Janet Weiblen, the pastor who has been working with Rhodes in prison the past four years. “I’d never heard anything like it.”

The parole board also cited disciplinary reports in prison, which has been a topic of conversation since we began blogging out this case.

Rhodes went to prison in 1981. The Kansas Adult Supervised Population Electronic Repository (KASPAR) online report, begins listing disciplinary reports for Rhodes in 1996. He’s since been written up for violating prison rules 34 times.

Before visiting the parole board in 2008, he’d received only four reports the previous three years.

“I would like to add that even though they may have a concern about the disciplinary reports I have received, none of which are felonies in society,” Rhodes said in an email from prison. “Disciplinary reports are certain facts of prison life.”

We again asked the parole board (PDF) to reconsider letting us inspect Rhodes records.

Marie McNeal, the parole board’s administrator, said in a telephone call she would have to check with legal counsel. The lawyer was on vacation, she explained, and wouldn’t return until July 12.

We’re still waiting.

Full post as published by What the Judge Ate for Breakfast on July 20, 2010 (boomark / email).